Invention

Invention In*ven"tion, n. [L. inventio: cf. F. invention. See {Invent}.] [1913 Webster] 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. [1913 Webster]

As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the invention will be the happiness of man. --Tatham. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

3. Thought; idea. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

4. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood. [1913 Webster]

Filling their hearers With strange invention. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

5. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. [1913 Webster]

They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

{Invention of the cross} (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena. [1913 Webster]