Definition of Invention

1. Noun. The creation of something in the mind.


2. Noun. A creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation.
Exact synonyms: Innovation
Generic synonyms: Creation
Derivative terms: Innovate, Innovational

3. Noun. The act of inventing.
Generic synonyms: Creating By Mental Acts
Specialized synonyms: Coinage, Neologism, Neology, Contrivance, Devisal
Derivative terms: Invent, Invent

Definition of Invention

1. n. 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.

Definition of Invention

1. Noun. Something invented. ¹

2. Noun. The act of inventing. ¹

3. Noun. The capacity to invent. ¹

4. Noun. (music) A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s ''Two-'' and ''Three-part Inventions''. ¹

5. Noun. (archaic) The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Invention

1. [n -S]

Medical Definition of Invention

1. 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. 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. 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, a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena. Origin: L. Inventio: cf. F. Invention. See Invent. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Invention

invendible
invenit
invenom
invenomed
invenoming
invenoms
invent
invented
inventer
inventers
inventest
inventeth
inventful
inventible
inventing
invention (current term)
inventions
inventious
inventive
inventively
inventiveness
inventivenesses
inventor
inventorial
inventorially
inventoried
inventories
inventorize
inventorized
inventorizes

Literary usage of Invention

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. United States Supreme Court Reports by Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, United States Supreme Court (1885)
"Valid letters patent may be granted for an invention which consists entirely in a new combination of old ingredients, provided it appears that the new ..."

2. Journal by Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain) (1875)
"Thus you will see the opponenti of a Patent-law allege that while there is frequently simultaneity of invention in the improving of a machine or of a ..."

3. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1919)
"If the inventor has publicly used or sold his invention for a period of two ... He may, however, make models and experiment with his invention for a much ..."

4. The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and (1911)
"But a small amount of invention will suffice, so long as the improvement is ... Whatever be the nature of the invention, it must possess the incidents of ..."

5. The Iliad of Homer by Homer (1796)
"No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty, and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. ..."

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