to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation, or contrivance: to invent the telegraph.
2.
to produce or create with the imagination: to invent a story.
3.
to make up or fabricate (something fictitious or false): to invent excuses.
4.
Archaic. to come upon; find.
[Origin: 1425–75; late ME invented (ptp.) found, discovered (see -ed2) < L inventus, ptp. of invenīre to encounter, come upon, find, equiv. to in-in-2+ ven(īre) to come+ -tus ptp. suffix]
—Related forms
in·vent·i·ble, in·vent·a·ble, adjective
—Synonyms 1. devise, contrive. See discover.2. imagine, conceive. 3. concoct.
Dis*cov"er\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Discovered; p. pr. & vb. n. Discovering.] [OE. discoveren, discuren, descuren, OF. descovrir, descouvrir, F. d['e]couvrir; des- (L. dis-) + couvrir to cover. See Cover.]1. To uncover. [Obs.] Whether any man hath pulled down or discovered any church. --Abp. Grindal. 2. To disclose; to lay open to view; to make visible; to reveal; to make known; to show (what has been secret, unseen, or unknown). Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover The several caskets to this noble prince. --Shak. Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. --Bacon. We will discover ourselves unto them. --1 Sam. xiv. 8. Discover not a secret to another. --Prov. xxv. 9. 3. To obtain for the first time sight or knowledge of, as of a thing existing already, but not perceived or known; to find; to ascertain; to espy; to detect. Some to discover islands far away. --Shak. 4. To manifest without design; to show. The youth discovered a taste for sculpture. --C. J. Smith. 5. To explore; to examine. [Obs.] Syn: To disclose; bring out; exhibit; show; manifest; reveal; communicate; impart; tell; espy; find; out; detect. -- To Discover, Invent. We discover what existed before, but remained unknown; we invent by forming combinations which are either entirely new, or which attain their end by means unknown before. Columbus discovered America; Newton discovered the law of gravitation; Whitney invented the cotton gin; Galileo invented the telescope.
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