Invented

How to spell invented

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce invented

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does invented mean?

1. verbCreated or designed something that did not exist before.
2. verbMade up a false story, excuse, or detail.

Invented in a sentence

• The engineer invented a quieter braking system for the trains.

• He invented an excuse about traffic to explain why he was late.

• She invented a clever filing method that saved the office hours each week.

• The witness clearly invented parts of his account to avoid blame.

Where does invented come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of 'invent', which comes from the Latin verb invenire, literally meaning 'to come upon' or 'to find'. That verb was built from the prefix in-, meaning 'upon' or 'on', and venire, meaning 'to come', so the original sense was simply stumbling across something that already existed. English borrowed it through the related noun 'invention' in the 1400s, and over time the meaning shifted from 'discovering' what was already there to 'devising' something entirely new. The same venire root surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'adventure', 'convene', and 'event', all of which carry a buried idea of coming or arriving. The spelling trap is small but real: the middle is 'vent', the same four letters as in 'event', followed by the regular '-ed' ending.

How the word is built

• in- (upon, on)
• vent (from venire: to come)
• -ed (past tense suffix)