Definitions for: Invention


[n] the act of inventing
[n] a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation
[n] the creation of something in the mind



Webster (1913) Definition: In*ven"tion, n. [L. inventio: cf. F. invention. See
Invent.]
1. The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or
construction of that which has not before existed; as, the
invention of logarithms; the invention of the art of
printing.



As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the invention
will be the happiness of man. --Tatham.

2. That which is invented; an original contrivance or
construction; a device; as, this fable was the invention
of Esop; that falsehood was her own invention.

We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention
to let one fall if not premonished. --Evelyn.

3. Thought; idea. --Shak.

4. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a
falsehood.

Filling their hearers With strange invention.
--Shak.

5. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or
ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of
invention.

They lay no less than a want of invention to his
charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a
maker. --Dryden.

6. (Fine Arts, Rhet., etc.) The exercise of the imagination
in selecting and treating a theme, or more commonly in
contriving the arrangement of a piece, or the method of
presenting its parts.

Invention of the cross (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May
3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St.
Helena.

Synonyms: conception, design, excogitation, innovation, innovation

See Also: coinage, concoction, contrivance, contrivance, creating by mental acts, creation, creativeness, creativity, devisal, neologism, neology

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