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.-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.-thought; idea.-a fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood.-the faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention.-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.