invention
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/
Forms: form: inventions
Etymology: From Middle English invencion, invencioun, from Latin inventiō either directly or via Middle French invencion, from Latin invenīre (“to discover, find, invent”), from in- (“in-: in, into”) + venīre (“to come”). Doublet of inventio. By surface analysis, invent + -ion.
Displaced native Old English orþanc.
Senses: examples: text: My new invention will let you alphabetize your matchbook collection in half the usual time.
text: I’m afraid there was no burglar. It was all the housekeeper’s invention.
text: Warren Sheffield is telephoning Rose long distance at half past six. […] Personally, I wouldn't marry a man who proposed to me over an invention.
ref: 1944 November 28, Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
text: British inventions have done more to influence the shape of the modern world than those of any other country. Many—football, the steam engine and Worcestershire sauce, to take a random selection—have spread pleasure, goodwill and prosperity. Others—the Maxim gun, the Shrapnel shell and jellied eels—have not.
ref: 2013 October 5, “The widening gyre”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8856, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:
glosses: Something invented.
examples: text: The invention of the printing press was probably the most significant innovation of the medieval ages.
text: Invention, or the Genius of Hiſtoricizing and framing a Noble Idea upon the Subject one vvould Paint, is a particular Talent, not to be acquir'd by Study or Labour; but is properly a certain ardor exciting the Imagination, prompting and enabling it to Act.
ref: 1668, Roland Freart [i.e., Roland Fréart de Chambray], “Of Invention”, in John Evelyn, transl., An Idea of the Perfection of Painting: […], In the Savoy [London]: […] Henry Herringman […], →OCLC, page 11:
text: Digging deeper, the invention of eyeglasses is an elaboration of the more fundamental development of optics technology. The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,[…].
ref: 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
glosses: The act of inventing.
examples: text: It took quite a bit of invention to come up with a plan, but we did it.
glosses: The capacity to invent.
examples: text: I particularly like the inventions in C-minor.
text: INVENTION. A term used by J. S. Bach, and probably by him only, for small pianoforte pieces — 15 in 2 parts and 15 in 3 parts — each developing a single idea, and in some measure answering to the Impromptu of a later day.
ref: 1880, George Grove (editor and entry author), A Dictionary of Music and Musicians II, London: Macmillan & Co., page 15, Invention
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions.
examples: text: That judicial method which serveth best for the invention of truth.
glosses: The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.
Synonyms: discovery
Derived terms: coinvention
innovention
inventioneer
inventionism
inventionist
Invention of the Cross
necessity is the mother of invention
preinvention
reinvention
uninvention
Related terms: invent
invented
inventional
inventive
inventor
reinvent