INVENT

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does invent mean? 

• INVENT (verb)
  The verb INVENT has 2 senses:

1. come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort

2. concoct something artificial or untrue

  Familiarity information: INVENT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INVENT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they invent    ... he / she / it invents   
Past simple: invented   
Past participle: invented   
-ing form: inventing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

contrive; devise; excogitate; forge; formulate; invent

Context example:

excogitate a way to measure the speed of light

Hypernyms (to "invent" is one way to...):

create by mental act; create mentally (create mentally and abstractly rather than with one's hands)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

Did he invent his major works over a short period of time?

Derivation:

invention (the act of inventing)

invention (the creation of something in the mind)

inventive ((used of persons or artifacts) marked by independence and creativity in thought or action)

inventor (someone who is the first to think of or make something)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Concoct something artificial or untrue

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

cook up; fabricate; invent; make up; manufacture

Hypernyms (to "invent" is one way to...):

concoct; dream up; hatch; think of; think up (devise or invent)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "invent"):

mythologise; mythologize (construct a myth)

confabulate (unconsciously replace fact with fantasy in one's memory)

concoct; trump up (invent)

spin (make up a story)

vamp; vamp up (make up)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

invention (the act of inventing)

 Context examples 

Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I was able to invent names for my parents, whom I pretended to be obscure people in the province of Gelderland.

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

MIT researchers they invented a way to shrink objects to nanoscale by using a laser, meaning they can take any simple structure and reduce it to one 1,000th of its original size.

(Researchers Use Laser to Shrink Objects to Nanoscale, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

It was he who invented that writing, which would pass as a child’s scrawl unless you just happened to have the key to it.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie?

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But, though known to sailors, I invented it there on Endeavour Island.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Kitty and Minnie Kirke likewise regard him with affection, and tell all sorts of stories about the plays he invents, the presents he brings, and the splendid tales he tells.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I can assure you that many times in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse which would take me back to Lee.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was afraid of catching cold I dare say, and invented this trick for getting out of it.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)