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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Invention \In*ven"tion\, 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.
[1913 Webster PJC]

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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