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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Invention \In*ven"tion\, noun [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; she patented five inventions. [1913 Webster +PJC]
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.) 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.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
invention
noun
1: the creation of something in the mind [syn: {innovation}, {excogitation}, {conception}, {design}]
2: a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation [syn: {innovation}]
3: the act of inventing
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
178 Moby Thesaurus words for "invention": Nachtmusik, absolute music, adaptation, air varie, aleatory, aleatory music, apparition, arrangement, artifact, authorship, beginning, brainchild, breakthrough, bringing to light, bubble, canard, casual discovery, catching, chamber music, chamber orchestra, chance discovery, child, chimera, coinage, composition, conception, concoction, contraption, contrivance, contriving, creation, creative effort, creativeness, creativity, creature, crowning achievement, delirium, descant, detection, determination, determining, development, device, devising, disclosure, discovery, distillation, distinguishment, effect, eidolon, electronic music, end product, espial, essence, etude, excavation, exercise, exhumation, exposure, extract, extravaganza, fable, fabrication, fake, falsehood, falsification, fancy, fantasque, fantasy, fecundity, fertile mind, fertility, fib, fiction, figment, find, finding, finding out, forgery, fruit, gadget, generation, gizmo, hallucination, handiwork, harmonization, hatching, idle fancy, illusion, imagery, imagination, imagining, improvisation, incidental music, ingenuity, innovation, instrumental music, insubstantial image, introduction, inventiveness, issue, leap, lie, locating, location, lucky strike, maggot, make-believe, making do, manufacture, masterpiece, masterwork, mintage, myth, neologism, new mintage, new phase, nocturne, novelty, offspring, opera, opus, opuscule, orchestration, original, originality, origination, outcome, outgrowth, phantasm, phantom, piece, pregnant imagination, prevarication, product, production, productivity, program music, prolificacy, recognition, rediscovery, result, revelation, ricercar, romance, score, serendipity, sham, sick fancy, sonata, sonatina, spotting, story, strike, string orchestra, string quartet, study, tale, tall story, tall tale, teeming imagination, theme and variations, thick-coming fancies, treasure trove, trio, trip, trouvaille, trove, uncovering, unearthing, vapor, variation, vision, whim, whimsy, wildest dreams, work, yarn
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