INNOVATION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does innovation mean? 

• INNOVATION (noun)
  The noun INNOVATION has 3 senses:

1. a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation

2. the creation of something in the mind

3. the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new

  Familiarity information: INNOVATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INNOVATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

innovation; invention

Hypernyms ("innovation" is a kind of...):

creation (an artifact that has been brought into existence by someone)

Derivation:

innovate (bring something new to an environment)

innovational (being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The creation of something in the mind

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

conception; design; excogitation; innovation; invention

Hypernyms ("innovation" is a kind of...):

creative thinking; creativeness; creativity (the ability to create)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "innovation"):

concoction (the invention of a scheme or story to suit some purpose)

contrivance (the faculty of contriving; inventive skill)

Derivation:

innovational (being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

creation; foundation; founding; initiation; innovation; instauration; institution; introduction; origination

Context example:

the foundation of a new scientific society

Hypernyms ("innovation" is a kind of...):

beginning; commencement; start (the act of starting something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "innovation"):

authorship; paternity (the act of initiating a new idea or theory or writing)

Derivation:

innovate (bring something new to an environment)

innovational (being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before)

 Context examples 

The test's ability to quantify zinc's clinically relevant levels, necessary to detect malnourishment, is one of its main innovations.

(Test for life-threatening nutrient deficit is made from bacteria entrails, National Science Foundation)

After extraordinary science findings and technological innovations, a NASA spacecraft launched in 2004 to study Mercury will impact the planet’s surface, most likely on April 30, after it runs out of propellant.

(NASA Spacecraft Achieves Unprecedented Success Studying Mercury, NASA)

Co-researcher Associate Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko said the invention could be tailored for other light spectrums including visible light, which opened up a whole array of innovations, including architectural and energy saving applications.

(Protecting Astronauts from Radiation in Space, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an expense.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Uranus, the planet of innovation, disruption, sudden change, creativity, and even genius, has been retrograde since August 11 and will go direct on the same day as the eclipse, January 10.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Who introduced this innovation? and by what authority?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The mission of the CBCRP is to eliminate breast cancer by leading innovation in research, communication, and collaboration in the California scientific and lay communities.

(California Breast Cancer Research Program, NCI Thesaurus)

New pathways create opportunities for evolutionary innovation, ultimately increasing bird biodiversity.

(Colorful bird feathers offer evolutionary clues, National Science Foundation)

By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Your career is run by your solar tenth house of honors, awards, and achievement, and that house is colored by Uranus, the planet of innovation, which has been retrograde since August 11.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)