Definition:
“An elaborate, improbable comparison between two very unlike things to create an imaginative connection between them.”
"Conceit Definition." SuperSummary, www.supersummary.com/conceit/. Accessed 13
Sept. 2022.
Informal:
Conceit connected to the word concept is the proud feeling in a person’s own abilities or qualities that exceeds excessive self-esteem. Referring to an unlikely situation moves the narrative in a text.
Example: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter -- Carson McCullers
“The title of McCullers’s novel is itself a conceit, referring directly to its themes of isolation and search for connection” (website).
Etymology:
Late 14c., "a thought, a notion, that which is mentally conceived," from conceived (see conceive) based on the analogy of deceit/deceive and receipt/receive.
The sense evolved from "something formed in the mind" to "fanciful or witty notion, ingenious thought" (the 1510s), to "vanity, an exaggerated estimate of one's own mental abilities" (c. 1600) through shortening of self-conceit (1580s).
"Online Etymology Dictionary." Online Etymology Dictionary, www.etymonline.com/
word/conceit
Analysis of Conceit Sarah Rodriguez