1. (n.) 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.

2. (n.) 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.

3. (n.) Thought; idea.

4. (n.) A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood.

5. (n.) The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention.

6. (n.) 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.