conceit

Listed like that, the conceit doesn’t sound very engaging, but the reality is far different.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026

Many people will be familiar with the conceit: The title character is born a man of 70, and as time moves forward, Benjamin’s physical age moves backward.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

Hansen uses this as a metaphor for the “To Catch a Predator” conceit.

From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026

While it has received a number of rave reviews, critics have called narrative art a false conceit and argued that the juxtaposition of masterworks with pop culture ephemera does not work.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026

The sort of healthy conceit that he had when he returned from America early in the spring was gone.

From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

All of Mr. Horowitz’s conceits are present here: a murder mystery within the murder mystery, winking nods at the author’s real-life career as a novelist and screenwriter, and playful experimentation with the detective-story form.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026

He followed it with a succession of intensely theatrical divertissements, often revolving around unexpected intellectual conceits or bizarre juxtapositions and featuring brilliant dialogue, puns, repartee, double meanings and misunderstandings.

From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025

“Gladiator II” and “Alien: Romulus” are Ridley Scott properties that heavily retread ground covered in the original conceits that inspired them.

From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2024

So what might seem like improvements or expansions — elaborate group choreography, imaginative conceits — risk straying from the emotional core that makes flamenco flamenco.

From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2024

Historiographic conceits aside, Polybius was born in Arcadia, notorious throughout antiquity as an irredeemable backwater.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro