invention

plural inventions

1. countableuncountableSomething invented.

   I’m afraid there was no burglar. It was all the housekeeper’s invention.

   3 more examples

   My new invention will let you alphabetize your matchbook collection in half the usual time.

   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.

   1944 November 28, Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   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.

   2013 October 5, “The widening gyre”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8856, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC

2. countableuncountableThe act of inventing.

   The invention of the printing press was probably the most significant innovation of the medieval ages.

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   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.

   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

   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,[…].

   2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist

3. countableuncountableThe capacity to invent.

   It took quite a bit of invention to come up with a plan, but we did it.

4. countableuncountableentertainmentA small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions.

   I particularly like the inventions in C-minor.

   1 more example

   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.

   1880, George Grove (editor and entry author), A Dictionary of Music and Musicians II, London: Macmillan & Co., page 15, Invention

5. archaiccountableuncountableThe act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.

   That judicial method which serveth best for the invention of truth.