conceive

When I hurt my legs in an accident, I conceived or formed the idea of a new game—playing basketball in a wheelchair. Conceiving or imagining the game was difficult: first, I made teams of eight people, and then I decided that we needed to play my game in a large space, such as a parking lot. I conceived or thought of using trash cans for baskets since most parking lots don’t have basketball hoops. Little did I know that this game wasn’t new at all, but was conceived or created in the United States in 1946—but without using trash cans!

Quiz: Try again! What happens when you conceive something?

• You wonder about it for a long time.
• You form a thought or idea of it.
• You fully understand it, no matter how hard it is.

• . . . the result was a Leonardo da Vinci, who painted his pictures, experimented with his balloons and flying machines, drained the marshes of the Lombardian plains and “expressed” his joy and interest in all things between Heaven and Earth in prose, in painting, in sculpture, and in curiously conceived engines. — The Story of Mankind
• Yesterday, on conceiving the trick, I pared down a firm white turnip to resemble the end of a candle. — A Gathering of Days