| invent | 1. To come or light upon; to meet; to find. "And vowed never to return again, Till him alive or dead she did invent." (Spenser) 2. To discover, as by study or inquiry; to find out; to devise; to contrive or produce for the first time; applied commonly to the discovery of some serviceable mode, instrument, or machine. "Thus first Necessity invented stools." (Cowper) 3. To frame by the imagination; to fabricate mentally; to forge; in a good or a bad sense; as, to invent the machinery of a poem; to invent a falsehood. "Whate'er his cruel malice could invent." (Milton) "He had invented some circumstances, and put the worst possible construction on others." (Sir W. Scott) Synonym: To discover, contrive, devise, frame, design, fabricate, concoct, elaborate. See Discover. Origin: L. Inventus, p. P. Of invenire to come upon, to find, invent; pref. In- in + venire to come, akin to E. Come: cf. F. Inventer. See Come. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
|---|---|
| invention | 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) |
| inventories, hospital | Materials and equipment in stock; includes drugs in pharmacies, blood in blood banks, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |
| inventory | A detailed, often descriptive, list of items. (05 Mar 2000) |
| inventress | A woman who invents. Origin: Cf. L. Inventrix, F. Inventrice. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |