Library / English Dictionary

CONJURE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together

Example:

They conspired to overthrow the government

Synonyms:

cabal; complot; conjure; conspire; machinate

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "conjure" is one way to...):

plot (plan secretly, usually something illegal)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "conjure"):

coconspire (conspire together)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Ask for or request earnestly

Example:

The prophet bid all people to become good persons

Synonyms:

adjure; beseech; bid; conjure; entreat; press

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "conjure" is one way to...):

plead (appeal or request earnestly)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody to INFINITIVE

Sense 3

Meaning:

Summon into action or bring into existence, often as if by magic

Example:

call down the spirits from the mountain

Synonyms:

arouse; bring up; call down; call forth; conjure; conjure up; evoke; invoke; put forward; raise; stir

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "conjure" is one way to...):

call up; summon (cause to become available for use, either literally or figuratively)

Verb group:

call forth; evoke; kick up; provoke (evoke or provoke to appear or occur)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "conjure"):

anathemise; anathemize; bedamn; beshrew; curse; damn; imprecate; maledict (wish harm upon; invoke evil upon)

bless (give a benediction to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

conjuration (calling up a spirit or devil)

conjuration (a ritual recitation of words or sounds believed to have a magical effect)

conjurer (someone who performs magic tricks to amuse an audience)

conjuring (calling up a spirit or devil)

conjuror (someone who performs magic tricks to amuse an audience)

conjury (calling up a spirit or devil)

Credits

 Context examples: 

In the context of faces under LPS light, things looked so strange, the brain conjured up an explanation: the actor must be sick, according to the researchers.

(Rosy health and sickly green: color associations play robust role in reading faces, National Institutes of Health)

It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship’s galley, crouched in a corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature about to strike me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog’s, my eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes of fear and helplessness.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

On the other hand, if all should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this paper should be still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother, and by the love which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give one thought to it again.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The new radar measurements confirm earlier findings that the lakes are far above sea level, but they conjure a new image of landforms - like mesas or buttes - sticking hundreds of feet above the surrounding landscape, with deep liquid lakes on top.

(Cassini Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes, NASA)

Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual happiness, with simple truth — Do you not love another?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was a talisman, a magic word to conjure with.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Such had he imagined the angels, and such he had tried to paint them in the Beaulieu missals; but here there was something human, were it only in the battered hawk and discolored dress, which sent a tingle and thrill through his nerves such as no dream of radiant and stainless spirit had ever yet been able to conjure up.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There I wandered about for many a year, and at last came back to the Punjab, where I lived mostly among the natives and picked up a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I conjured him to conceal from all persons what I had told him of the Houyhnhnms; because the least hint of such a story would not only draw numbers of people to see me, but probably put me in danger of being imprisoned, or burnt by the Inquisition.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)