conceit

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

Garry explains the evening’s conceit shortly after waddling from his chair.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

That conceit ended up an unsubtle but no less effective metaphor for our new Gilded Age.

From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026

I think it’s the height of conceit for us Wartians to decide that our planet is better than all the other 999,999,999,999.

From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins

Mr. Oppenheim calls his movie “journalism,” but the term is correct only if he means a stringing-together of narrative conceits to meet the journalist’s emotional needs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026

“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

Awarding the show three stars, the Telegraph's Claire Allfree said the "unstable, performative nature of identity, and its analogous resonance for theatre - the ultimate con trick - are familiar conceits".

From BBC ● Mar. 14, 2024

“But she is employing the literary conceits and techniques of a novel. And the meeting you speak of has already occurred—you have been reading it for the past quarter of an hour.”

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein