conceit

Panettiere’s grounded presence helps untether the film from its somewhat corny conceit, giving it authentic complexity.

From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2026

Ames’ Julianne is underdeveloped, her family life a conceit of the play rather than a lived reality.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

Here, Tuason cleverly lifts a conceit from “The Ring,” where a cursed videotape gave the viewer seven days to live after popping it into the VCR.

From Salon ● Mar. 15, 2026

Advocates of administrative tribunals claim they’re more efficient than federal courts, but the Ross case belies this conceit.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026

He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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

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

“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