conceit - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

If you’re always boasting and can’t stop talking about yourself, you have that character flaw known as conceit. Your friends — if you have any — may also complain about your arrogance, vanity, and egotism.

A conceit can also be an artistic device — probably a little forced — like the plot of a movie built on the conceit of everything that happens being foretold in song. You might find an architectural conceit in a Baroque palace, where you think you’re looking down a long hallway lined with columns, but when you get closer you see that it's really a mural painted in perspective so that the columns only seem to disappear in the distance.

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: conceit

1	n	the trait of being unduly vain and conceited; false pride
2	n	an artistic device or effect

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: conceit

1

n the trait of being unduly vain and conceited; false pride

Synonyms:: conceitedness, vanity

Antonyms:: humbleness, humility
a disposition to be humble; a lack of false pride

Types:: show 5 types...; hide 5 types...; narcism, narcissism, self-love
an exceptional interest in and admiration for yourself; boastfulness, vainglory
outspoken conceit; egotism, self-importance, swelled head
an exaggerated opinion of your own importance; posturing
adopting a vain conceited posture; superiority complex
an exaggerated estimate of your own value and importance

Type of:: trait
a distinguishing feature of your personal nature

n feelings of excessive pride

Synonyms:: amour propre, self-love, vanity

Type of:: pride, pridefulness
a feeling of self-respect and personal worth

2

n an artistic device or effect

“the architect's brilliant conceit was to build the house around the tree”

Type of:: device
something in an artistic work designed to achieve a particular effect

n an elaborate poetic image or a far-fetched comparison of very dissimilar things

Type of:: figure, figure of speech, image, trope
language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense

n a witty or ingenious turn of phrase

“he could always come up with some inspired off-the-wall conceit”

Type of:: turn of expression, turn of phrase
a distinctive spoken or written expression