Dictionary

nonconception en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- substratebor.? Proto-Indo-European *kap- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti Proto-Italic *kapjō Archaic Latin kapiō Latin capiō ▲ Ancient Greek σῠλλᾰμβᾰ́νω (sŭllămbắnō)calq. Latin concipiō Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin conceptiōlbor. Old French conceptionbor. Middle English concepcioun English conception English nonconception From non- + conception.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A failure to conceive; The aftermath of sexual intercourse in which there is no fertilization of an egg by sperm.
   • A long period of nonconception, usually the two or three years after marriage, leads to worries of a possible medical problem in the couple. 2005, Vinita Bhargava, Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences, page 86:
   • In the case of nonconception, there is a loss of an enormous amount of possible future good but there is no victim of the loss, no existing individual whose good it would have been. 2002, Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life:
   • For all these reasons, I assume that nonconception is better than a constantly neutral life. 2019, Espen Gamlund, Carl Tollef Solberg, Saving People from the Harm of Death, page 112:
   • With this formulation, the probability of nonconception is simply the product of the day-specific failure probabilities multiplied across all days where there was intercourse. 1996, Biometrics, page 946:
2. (countable, uncountable) An unthought concept.
   • It is to a nonconception of this plain truth, namely, that money is as much a marketable commodity as any of those things for which it is given in exchange, that we must ascribe the ignorance that prevails concerning the laws by which its value and its distribution are regulated, and of the consequences which follow when the natural operation of these laws is disturbed. 1836, The Monthly Review, page 384:

Forms