Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination.
- v. To make up; fabricate: invent a likely excuse.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To come upon; light upon; meet with; find.
- To find out by original study or contrivance; create by a new use or combination of means; devise the form, construction, composition, method, or principle of.
- In general, to produce by contrivance; fabricate; concoet; devise: as, to invent the plot of a story; to invent an excuse or a falsehood.
- Synonyms 2 and 3. Discover, Invent. See discover and invention.
Wiktionary
- v. To design a new process or mechanism.
- v. To create something fictional for a particular purpose.
- v. To come upon; to find; to find out; to discover.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To come or light upon; to meet; to find.
- v. 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.
- v. To frame by the imagination; to fabricate mentally; to forge; -- in a good or a bad sense
WordNet 3.0
- v. come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort
- v. make up something artificial or untrue
Etymologies
- Latin invenīre, invent-, to find : in-, on, upon; see in-2 + venīre, to come; see gwā- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“That is, critics who use the term invent the boundaries that are supposedly being "transgressed.”
“To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented before my time, 'non interrumpunt at _interrupturiunt_.”
“To invent is a game and it is really fun," he says.”
The Wall Street Journal: French Master Chef Reinvents His Art
“There is no need in invent projects for us to play together like children.”
Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? A Freakonomics Quorum - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com
“Framing the argument as though there was no difference between the 1-Click patent and the patent for a new molecule that cost a billion dollars to invent is a deceptive practice. blog comments powered by Disqus”
“They also missed some good ones: didn't Heinlein invent the waldo and the waterbed?”
“I have, therefore, listed Dr. Samuel Johnson in some of my memorandums of the principal planters and favourers of the enclosures, under a name which I took the liberty to invent from the Greek, Papadendrion.”
“If we can demonstrate the fact that we call invent anything, mould a piece of statuary or write a book as well as anyone, then we shall do more to solve the negro problem than all preaching and complaining can do?”
“I have, therefore, listed Dr. Samuel Johnson in some of my memorandums of the principal planters and favourers of the enclosures, under a name which I took the liberty to invent from the Greek, Papadendrion [299].”
Life of Johnson
“I have, therefore, listed Dr. Samuel Johnson in some of my memorandums of the principal planters and favourers of the enclosures, under a name which I took the liberty to invent from the Greek, _Papadendrion_ [299].”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘invent’.
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steffany(grade 2)
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base, beach and 127 more...
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jackgrade2
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, atlas, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base and 127 more...
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Verbs
edit, delete, get, take, abide, be, catch, wash, watch, fly, eat, sleep and 33 more...
bilby I know. It's just that I feel like an extra in it :-( May 14, 2009
sarahlena you create your own story May 13, 2009