concetto means affected wit; a witty turn of phrase; a conceit. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
concetto is pronounced /kənˈt͡ʃɛtəʊ/.
Why “concetto” is a great word
CONCETTO — [Noun] An elaborately artful turn of phrase or piece of affected wit, prized more for its stylistic ingenuity than its intrinsic truth. Borrowed from Italian concetto, from Latin conceptus (“a conceiving, thought, idea”). Unlike “conceit,” a broader term for a fanciful poetic device, or “aphorism,” a vessel for condensed wisdom, a concetto is a self-conscious performance of intellect, a beautiful mechanism that whirrs to no deeper end. It is the baroque pearl of language: the improbable metaphorical acrobatics of a courtier’s compliment, the too-perfect symmetry of an epitaph honoring the writer’s skill, or the glint of a jewelled dagger in a sonnet’s final line—a testament to the human delight in ornate complication for its own exquisite sake.
noun
- Affected wit; a witty turn of phrase; a conceit.“Tasso in particular, Mirollo notes, treated the concetto "as the equivalent in a lyric poem of plot in longer works." Pellegrino, similarly, and with reference to Tasso, says that concetti "are the soul and the form of a composition" […]”