inventor
Americannoun
-
inventors
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of inventor
From Latin, dating back to 1500–10; see origin at invent, -tor
Explanation
The person who first comes up with a brand new idea or thing is its inventor. A woman named Mary Anderson, for example, is credited with being the inventor of the windshield wiper blade for cars. Lewis Latimer invented many things during his lifetime, and drafted the patent for the telephone (with fellow inventor Alexander Graham Bell). Oddly enough, Latimer's first work as an inventor was developing a restroom for train cars, in 1874. In the 1940s, actress Hedy Lamarr was the inventor of a communications technology that eventually made wireless technology, including cell phones, possible. In Latin, inventor means "contriver, author, or discoverer."
Vocabulary lists containing inventor
Business, List 1
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -er, -or
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for September 25–October 5, 2021
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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:
The story: The ride is a new technology from a fictional inventor, Rebecca Silva, who will introduce guests in the waiting area to what is described as a “Futurist Pavilion.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026
He also created recurring characters like “Mr. Glow, the inventor of glow sticks.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
“Tike” Miller, the Illinois inventor of the Mold-A-Rama, was inspired by a broken figurine in his nativity scene.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Colleagues paid tribute to a "pioneer, a researcher, an inventor" who made "anatomy accessible to the general public", but critics have accused him of voyeurism and profiting commercially from death.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The taxi rounded the statue of the inventor of the semaphore engaged in doing same, and turned up the Boulevard Raspail, and I sat back to let that part of the ride pass.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Here’s what she’s learned: When technology doesn’t graduate beyond the demo stage, the problem is often that inventors and engineers are so enamored with their own creation that they assume it will find a home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Svensson and Coassolo are inventors on patents regarding BRP peptides for metabolic disorders.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026
Both countries lay claim to being the inventors of the sport and in the early days the fixture was dominated by the Scots, who popularised the passing game.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Airship captains and Victorian inventors gather Down Under.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 2, 2026
Larger populations mean more inventors and more competing societies.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
