Concept

A concept is an abstract entity.

Concepts are usually relevant to describe non-concrete entities, such as thoughts, patterns and categories.

As an example of a pattern, we have concepts such as that of a machine. A number of machines exist concretely, but the fact we call them all machines is because there must exist some shared set of properties that they all share despite their differences.

The function of removing these particulars to arrive at the common aspect is called abstraction and the result is the concept of a machine.

Because ideas do not exist concretely, they are mostly conceptual. But a concept as an idea is really only meaningful when it gains some endurance in a collective consciousness. As an example, we can think of the concept of truth as being distinct from the property of truth.