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• Necessity is the mother of invention
  Necessity is the mother of invention

  A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. This saying appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
• necessity is the mother of invention
  necessity is the mother of invention

  Inventiveness and ingenuity are stimulated by difficulty. For example, The first prisoner to tie together bedsheets to escape knew that necessity was the mother of invention. This proverb first appeared in English in 1519 in slightly different form, “Need taught him wit,” and exists in many other languages as well.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Cultural  

1. A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. This saying appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

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necessity is the mother of invention Idioms  

1. Inventiveness and ingenuity are stimulated by difficulty. For example, The first prisoner to tie together bedsheets to escape knew that necessity was the mother of invention. This proverb first appeared in English in 1519 in slightly different form, “Need taught him wit,” and exists in many other languages as well.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Necessity is the mother of invention necessity is the mother of invention

Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes, so forcing a team to play short-handed could compel remaining employees to find productivity hacks faster than they otherwise would have.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026

"That's when the idea clicked. Necessity is the mother of invention, and that's how I began experimenting with agrivoltaics."

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025

Necessity is the mother of invention, which prompted me to seek a new but nearby alpine lake on a recent Sunday: Rachel Lake.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 12, 2022

Necessity is the mother of invention, and 2020 pushed the world like never before to find creative solutions to a litany of challenges, first and foremost in the medical field.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 14, 2021

Necessity is the mother of invention, and over the centuries the English language has developed workarounds for its rigid syntax.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

But necessity is the mother of invention or, in this case, reinvention.

From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026

The proverb "necessity is the mother of invention" has been used to describe the source from which our cultural evolution springs.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 5, 2024

“Right now it’s number one on the list of issues that are concerning school districts ... necessity is the mother of invention, and hard-pressed districts are going to have to come up with some solutions.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 3, 2022

If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps this horrible pandemic can provide autistic individuals like myself with an opportunity to undergo some forced therapy when it comes to our executive functioning skills.

From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2020

How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.

From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel