In another topic, cindyb uses conjure to mean think. My son at 24 years uses the word similarly and also with the shade of remember.
I have never heard my generation use it without the magical implication. Is this a generational thing? cindyb, your approximate age might be helpful here.
I looked in the online OED. There is no hint of this new meaning. The free dictionary has a couple of examples, but no dates are listed.
I, too, associate conjure with magic. Specifically, making something to appear from nothing. Â I checked and found my understanding to be correct. Â Therefore this makes perfect sense. Â Many of my memories come from nowhere. Â I don't even remember where they came from. Â No doubt a sign of old age. Â With that thought, to conjure a memory would be more correctly used by the older generation.
I have the opposite impression, that to "conjure" up a memory is an older usage. Â Maybe it's being revived. Â For comparison, I was born in 1954; none of my peers would have used that term, but I read a lot of old books and I think that's where I first got it. Â By "old" I don't mean G K Chesterton and Rudyard Kipling, but further back; an early translation of the original Swiss Family Robinson, perhaps, or even The Thousand and One Nights (although conjuring would usually be more literal there).
[Later:] Of course I agree that "conjure" literally refers to magic; I only mean that by the 1800s they were using it figuratively about one's memories and imaginations.
[Later still:] Just found this at the OED:
conjure (v.): late 13c., "command on oath," from Old French conjurer "invoke, conjure" (12c.), from Latin coniurare "to swear together; conspire," from com- "together" (see com-) + iurare "to swear" (see jury (n.)). Magical sense is c.1300, for "constraining by spell" a demon to do one's bidding. Related: Conjured; conjuring. Phrase conjure up "cause to appear in the mind" (as if by magic) attested from 1580s.
I note that my 'OED' is the Oxford English Dictionary and Bob's is the Online Etymology Dictionary.
I really like the Online Etymology Dictionary; I use it all the time, enough that I get tired of feeling I have to spell it out. Â Yet there's no getting around it; "OED" means the Oxford English, means it to enough people (even to me) that I should have restrained my laziness and said what I meant. Â Instead I allowed the link to speak for me.
I'm not exactly apologizing because I may still do it again. Â But I promise I'm looking for a better way. Â Sigh.