Invention

n.	1.
	1.	The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or construction of that which has not before existed; as, the invention of logarithms; the invention of the art of printing. As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the invention will be the happiness of man. - Tatham.
	2.	That which is invented; an original contrivance or construction; a device; as, this fable was the invention of Esop; that falsehood was her own invention; she patented five inventions. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall if not premonished. - Evelyn.
	3.	Thought; idea.
	4.	A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood. Filling their hearers With strange invention. - Shak.
	5.	The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. - Dryden.
	6.	(Fine Arts, Rhet., etc.) The exercise of the imagination in selecting and treating a theme, or more commonly in contriving the arrangement of a piece, or the method of presenting its parts. Invention of the cross (Eccl.) a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena.

Noun	1.	invention - the creation of something in the mind Synonyms: excogitation, innovation, conception, design
	2.	invention - a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation Synonyms: innovation
	3.	invention - the act of inventing

INVENTION. A contrivance; a discovery. It is in this sense this word is used in the patent laws of the United States. 17 Pet. 228; S. C. 1 How. U. S. 202. It signifies not something which has been found ready made, but something which, in consequence of art or accident, has been formed; for the invention must relate to some new or useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, not before known or used by others. Act of July 4, 1836, 4 Sharsw. continuation of Story's L. U.S. 2506; 1 Mason, R. 302; 4 Wash. C. C. R. 9. Vide Patent. By invention, the civilians understand the finding of some things which had not been lost; they must either have abandoned, or they must have never belonged to any one, as a pearl found on the sea shore. Lec. Elem Sec. 350.

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