invent
Americanverb (used with object)
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invents,
present (3rd person singular)
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invented,
past participle, past
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inventing
present participle
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to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation, or contrivance.
to invent the telegraph.
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to produce or create with the imagination.
to invent a story.
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to make up or fabricate (something fictitious or false).
to invent excuses.
- Synonyms:
- concoct
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Archaic. to come upon; find.
verb
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to create or devise (new ideas, machines, etc)
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to make up (falsehoods); fabricate
Synonym Usage
See discover.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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outinventverb (used with object)
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preinventverb (used with object)
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inventableadjective
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inventibleadjective
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self-inventedadjective
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uninventedadjective
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well-inventedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inventsimple
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inventssimple
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have inventedperfect
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has inventedperfect
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am inventingprogressive
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are inventingprogressive
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is inventingprogressive
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have been inventingperfect progressive
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has been inventingperfect progressive
Past
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inventedsimple
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had inventedperfect
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was inventingprogressive
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were inventingprogressive
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had been inventingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of invent
First recorded in 1425–75; back formation from late Middle English invented (past participle) “found, discovered,” from Latin invent(us) “encountered” (past participle of invenīre “to come upon, encounter, find,” from in- in- 2 + venīre “to come”; see also come) + -ed 2
Explanation
To invent is to create for the first time or make up. If you tell your friends that you invented the electric guitar, you are inventing a pretty unbelievable story about your past. When you think of the word invent, think of Thomas Alva Edison who invented the long-lasting light bulb, the motion picture camera, the phonograph, and the stock ticker. That's a lot of inventions! You couldn't invent a better story of American ingenuity, could you?
Vocabulary lists containing invent
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One promising strategy is not to invent a completely new antibiotic, but to help existing drugs work again.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026
She didn’t invent the idea of catchy songs about infatuations and breakups where the protagonist’s experience can be mapped to a singer’s life, but she perfected it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
“She had to invent herself … she is making up her life as she goes.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
“An officer could simply invent an accusation of criminality, leaving the green-card holder trapped in a bureaucratic twilight zone for years before they have a chance to rebut the accusation at a hearing,” Mark writes.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026
“It’s the one about failing ten thousand times when he tried to invent the light bulb, right? Is that how long you think it’s going to take me to pass the Lincoln assassination?”
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
He’s made a movie about Odysseus’ remorse for inventing the Trojan horse without a crucial scene: the moment he invents it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
"Our work is a prime example of how evolution seldom invents things from scratch," says Daniel Kronauer, head of the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior at Rockefeller.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
"Every new live-service game invents its own demise," van Dreunen said.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
I founded a company in Pullman, Wash., that invents and builds products that protect, automate and control critical infrastructure in more than 170 countries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2025
He invents a machine to slice carrots: lift a lever, nineteen blades drop, and the carrot falls apart into twenty neat cylinders.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
It’s why our drama teacher invented an entirely new role for her in our spring musical, to showcase her generational comedic talent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Yes, that Lee Kum Kee, the ones that invented oyster sauce.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
Microsoft and Google’s cloud businesses have grown faster than Amazon’s for some time, to the point where they pose a legitimate threat to AWS’s dominance of an industry it virtually invented two decades ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
The group also faces increased competition from copycats in supermarkets, as well as from rival Select, which claims to have invented the spritz in Venice in 1920.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
To communicate, she and I invented a little game, something like Twenty Questions.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
"Fiction isn't inventing new emotions in you. It's pressing on those pre-existing motivations like instincts."
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
My ancestors arrived with uncertainty and hope, welcomed by a country still inventing itself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
The Lydians are widely credited with inventing coinage, and their ruler, King Croesus, became legendary for his immense wealth.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026
She found herself inventing excuses to try to keep him home at night.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
Aside from inventing the Herculean frankfurters, my brother had little interest in the family business.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
