invention

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of inventing: used a technique of her own invention.
2. n. A new device, method, or process developed from study and experimentation: the phonograph, an invention attributed to Thomas Edison.
3. n. A mental fabrication, especially a falsehood.
4. n. Skill in inventing; inventiveness: "the invention and sweep of the staging” ( John Simon).
5. n. Music A short composition developing a single theme contrapuntally.
6. n. A discovery; a finding.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A finding. [Obsolete, or archaic, as in the phrase Invention of the Cross. See cross.]
2. n. The act or process of finding out how to make something previously unknown, or how to do something in a new way; original contrivance; creation by a new use of means: as, the invention of printing; the invention of the steamengine, or of an improved steam-engine.
3. n. That which is invented; something previously unknown, or some new modification of an existing thing, produced by an original use of means; an original contrivance or device. When used absolutely, it generally denotes a new mechanical device, or a new process in one of the useful arts.
4. n. Specifically, in music, a short piece in which a single thought is worked out, usually contrapuntally, but with the comparative simplicity of an impromptu or of a study.
5. n. The act of producing by the exercise of the imagination; mental fabrication or creation: as, the invention of plots or of excuses.
6. n. The faculty or power of inventing; skill or ingenuity in original contrivance; the gift of finding out or producing new forms, methods, processes, effects, etc.; in art and lit., the exercise of imagination in production; the creative faculty.
7. n. A coming in; arrival.

Wiktionary

1. n. Something invented.
2. n. The act of inventing.
3. n. The capacity to invent.
4. n. music A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions.
5. n. archaic The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or construction of that which has not before existed
2. n. That which is invented; an original contrivance or construction; a device
3. n. Thought; idea.
4. n. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood.
5. n. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new.
6. n. (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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the creation of something in the mind
2. n. a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation
3. n. the act of inventing