GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English
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Invention (?), n. [L. inventio: cf. F. invention. See Invent.]
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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.”
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As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the invention will be the happiness of man. Tatham.
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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; she patented five inventions.”
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We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall if not premonished. Evelyn.
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3. Thought; idea. Shak.
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4. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood.
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Filling their hearers
With strange invention. Shak.
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5. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, “a man of invention”.
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They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. Dryden.
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6. (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.
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Invention of the cross (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena.
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