concetto

See also: concettò

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian concetto, from Latin conceptus. See conceit and concept, which are doublets.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈt͡ʃɛtəʊ/

Noun

concetto (plural concetti)

1. (literature) Affected wit; a witty turn of phrase; a conceit.

   Synonym: conceit

   • 1997, James Biester, Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in Renaissance English Poetry, Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 32:

     Tasso in particular, Mirollo notes, treated the concetto "as the equivalent in a lyric poem of plot in longer works." Pellegrino, similarly, and with reference to Tasso, says that concetti "are the soul and the form of a composition" […]

   • 2006, Vernon Hyde Minor, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 9:

     But to restrict the concetto to an idea or concept gives short shrift to the metaphorical and sometimes occult implications of the term. Conceit as discors concordia involves the comparison of unlike things, the finding of similarity in dissimilarity.

Derived terms

• concettism

Further reading

• “concetto”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “concetto”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Italian

Etymology

From Latin conceptus (“received, caught; derived from; contained, held; adopted; conceived”). It was also originally the past participle of concepire.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /konˈt͡ʃɛt.to/
• Rhymes: -ɛtto
• Hyphenation: con‧cèt‧to

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

concetto m (plural concetti)

1. concept
2. opinion

   Synonym: opinione

3. idea
4. (theater, rhetoric) in Italian comedy (commedia dell'arte), stock punch line learned by the performers for use in this improvisational form of theater

   Synonyms: vivezza, acutezza

5. conceit (work full of orotund phrases and pompous concetti, affected wit)

Descendants

• → English: concetto
• → French: concetto

Anagrams

• concotte

Neapolitan

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian concetto.

Noun

concetto m (plural [please provide])

1. concept