Invention

How to spell invention

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce invention

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does invention mean?

1. nounSomething newly designed or created, or the act of devising it.
2. nounA false story or fabrication produced to deceive.

Invention in a sentence

• The patent office logged the invention within a week.

• His excuse turned out to be a complete invention.

• The printing press was a world-changing invention.

• The alibi was a pure invention with no basis in fact.

Where does invention come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb invenire, which literally meant 'to come upon' or 'to find', built from in- meaning 'upon' and venire meaning 'to come'. From it came the noun inventio, the act of finding or discovering something, and an inventor was at first simply someone who came across something rather than one who built it. English took the word through Old French invencion in the 1300s, when it still carried that older sense of discovery, as in the religious 'Invention of the Cross', meaning its finding. Over time the meaning shifted from finding what already existed to devising something entirely new, the sense we use today. The same venire root surfaces in many relatives such as 'event', 'venue', 'convene', and 'adventure', and the steady -tion ending is the spelling cue that keeps it from slipping into an -sion.

How the word is built

• in- (upon, into)
• vent (from venire: to come)
• -ion (noun of action)