devise

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What I had to devise was a way of fooling the eye into believing that all these panels are curved with the shell.

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Definitions (29)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. transitive verb To form, plan, or arrange in the mind; design or contrive: devised a new system for handling mail orders.
  2. transitive verb Law To transmit or give (real property) by will.
  3. transitive verb Archaic To suppose; imagine.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (14)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

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Examples (50)

  • What I had to devise was a way of fooling the eye into believing that all these panels are curved with the shell. —  Christopher Deam restyles the Airstream
  • All of the technical, expert, and professional skill and knowledge that money could procure or experience devise were availed of in the bitter fights that raged in the courts for many years. —  Edison, His Life and Inventions
  • Though some variation in length may occur due to the soft tooling of spin-cast molds, we have taken the greatest care to make sure the devise is accurate within one half of one millimeter from 0mm to 45mm. —  Tabletop Gaming News
  • After exhausting every plan they could devise, they bethought themselves of coercion. —  The American Family Robinson or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West
  • Others in the merry party were Abram Cone and Y. Fred Smart The dinner was the most elaborate the chef had been able to devise, the domestic champagne was as free as the air, and Mr. Sprudell, stimulated by the presence of the moneyed men of Bartlesville and his private knowledge of the importance of the occasion, was keyed up to his best. —  The Man from the Bitter Roots
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

devise:   devising ·  devised ·  devises
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English devisen, from Old French deviser, from Vulgar Latin *dēvīsāre, from Latin *dīvīsāre, frequentative of dīvidere, to divide; see divide.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English also devize; from Middle English devisen, devysen, divisen, devicen, from Old French deviser, distinguish, regulate, bequeath, talk, French deviser = Provencal Spanish (obsolete) Portuguese devisar = Italian divisare, divide, share, describe, think, from Middle Latin as if *divisare, from divisa, a division of goods, portion of land, bound, decision, mark, device: see device.
  2. A former spelling of device; in legal senses due to the verb devise: see device, n., devise, v.
 

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/dəˈvaɪz/
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