devise

What it means

1. transitiveTo use one’s intellect to plan or design (something).

   Near-synonyms: lay, set, design, plan, create

   5 more examples

   to devise an argument; to devise a machine, or a new system of writing

   Therefore to make complaynt Of such mysadvysed Parsons and dysgysed, Thys boke we have devysed, […]

   c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 20–23

   His fiery eies are fixt vpon the earth. As if he now deuiſ’d some Stratageme: Or meant to pierce Auernus darkſome vauts. To pull the triple headed dog from hell.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii

   devising schemes to realize his ambitious views

   1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [et al.], →OCLC

   Thus, the task of the linguist devising a grammar which models the linguistic competence of the fluent native speaker is to devise a finite set of rules which are capable of specifying how to form, interpret, and pronounce an infinite set of well-formed sentences.

   1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar, Cambridge: University Press, →ISBN, page 23

   Synonyms: lay, set, design, plan, create

2. transitiveTo leave (property) in a will.
3. archaicintransitiveTo form a scheme; to lay a plan; to contrive; to consider.

   I thought, devised, and Pallas heard my prayer.

   1725, Homer, “Book IX”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume II, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC

In a sentence

Near-synonyms: lay, set, design, plan, create

Where it comes from

1. Latindīvisō
2. Vulgar Latindevisō
3. Old Frenchdeviser
4. Middle Englishdevisen
5. Englishdevise

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English devisen, devysen, from Old French deviser, from Vulgar Latin devisō, from Latin dīvisō, frequentative of dīvidō.