invent
- to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation, or contrivance: to invent the telegraph.
- to produce or create with the imagination: to invent a story.
- to make up or fabricate (something fictitious or false): to invent excuses.
- Archaic. to come upon; find.
Origin of invent
Synonyms for invent
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comRelated Words for invent
fashion, envision, formulate, devise, conceive, originate, discover, bear, initiate, produce, design, forge, find, concoct, fake, improvise, execute, compose, form, authorExamples from the Web for invent
Contemporary Examples of invent
I still do find it a tremendously useful device to invent a character and have the character sing the song.
As a Harvard undergraduate, he used systolic blood pressure readings to invent the lie detector test.
Wonder Woman’s Creation Story Is Wilder Than You Could Ever ImagineTom Arnold-Forster
November 3, 2014
Did McCarthy invent the portrayal of violence in fiction, or should that laurel go to Homer?
Compliments Are Nice, but Enough With the Cormac McCarthy ComparisonsWilliam Giraldi
October 21, 2014
By using an alter ego, he liberates himself, relaxes himself so he can invent freely.
Not surprisingly, the losers were now winning engineers; one of the MIT graduates had gone on to invent ear buds for Apple.
These Undocumented Teens Outsmarted MIT—and Still Cant Get Real Jobs in AmericaJonathan Alter
July 14, 2014
Historical Examples of invent
I should be b-a-d, and I should sit up nights to invent new ways of evil.
The SpendersHarry Leon Wilson
I will move detachments and advance brigades, and invent strategy.
In the Midst of AlarmsRobert Barr
What could she invent, so to be before him in giving her charity?
The DreamEmile Zola
"That's as good a description of him as you could invent," he said.
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
A telegraph operator, in their eyes, has no business to invent.
Heroes of the TelegraphJ. Munro
invent
- to create or devise (new ideas, machines, etc)
- to make up (falsehoods); fabricate
Word Origin for invent
Word Origin and History for invent
late 15c., "find, discover," a back-formation from invention or else from Latin inventus, past participle of invenire "to come upon; devise, discover" (see invention). Meaning "make up, think up" is from 1530s, as is that of "produce by original thought." Related: Invented; inventing.