invention
(noun) the act of inventing
invention, innovation
(noun) a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation
invention, innovation, excogitation, conception, design
(noun) the creation of something in the mind
Source: WordNet® 3.1
invention (countable and uncountable, plural inventions)
Something invented.
The act of inventing.
The capacity to invent.
(music) A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions.
(archaic) The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.
• discovery
Source: Wiktionary
In*ven"tion, n. Etym: [L. inventio: cf. F. invention. See Invent.]
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.
As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the invention will be the happiness of man. Tatham.
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. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall if not premonished. Evelyn.
3. Thought; idea. Shak.
4. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood. Filling their hearers With strange invention. Shak.
5. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. Dryden.
6. (Fine Arts, Rhet., etc.)
Definition: 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. Invention of the cross (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
19 April 2025
(verb) grasp with the mind or develop an understanding of; “did you catch that allusion?”; “We caught something of his theory in the lecture”; “don’t catch your meaning”; “did you get it?”; “She didn’t get the joke”; “I just don’t get him”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
