1The action of inventing something, typically a process or device.

15世纪印刷术的发明。

1. 1.1count noun Something, typically a process or device, that has been invented.
   发明物（尤指创造出的过程或装置）
   medieval inventions included spectacles for reading and the spinning wheel

   中世纪的发明物中有读书用眼镜和手纺车。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • When people talk about humanity's greatest achievements, they tend to reel off useful inventions like the wheel, vaccination and rockets.
   • A shame since it includes the weapons, sabotage devices and other inventions which undoubtedly frustrated the German forces.
   • Utility patents - unlike design or plant patents - are granted for inventions of machines, processes, and products.
   • But don't destroy their good inventions in the process.
   • His inventions include an electronic microinjection device and a flexible substrate for cell culture.
   • As with many modern inventions, Lawton's device was a culmination of ideas and experimentation involving many people.
   • The parallel inventions of lifts and mechanical air-conditioning in the building industry allowed the vertical stacking of patient accommodation atop podiums.
   • Masterful with machinery, he patented several mechanical inventions which had varying degrees of viability.
   • Among his many inventions was an elegant device for pumping water uphill for irrigation purposes.
   • Patents protect underlying ideas of useful inventions and processes, such as a chemical reaction or an inventive mechanical device.
   • To do this, we identified approximately 2,400 distinct patent classes that contained semiconductor product, device, and design inventions.
   • He produced all sorts of inventions, including an electric device for locating metal in human tissue.
   • The agricultural world also had its contributions to the list of medieval inventions.
   • The hook details the trail of specific inventions; filters, electronic pattern recognition, artificial intelligence.
   • Like most scientific inventions, television can be a double-edged weapon.
   • At the same time, scientists make laboratory use of many of these same technical inventions: transistors, computer hardware, and gene guns, for example.
   • In the EU, he says, IBM is one of the strongest supporters of the proposed directive on computer implemented inventions, a very controversial piece of legislation.
   • All our devices and inventions will fail us if there is a collapse of the human spirit.
   • Businesses are facing an increasing risk of having their ideas, inventions, systems and processes stolen, which could cost them thousands of pounds and in some cases cause serious damage.
   • Among his many inventions was a machine gun so overburdened with gadgets that it was unsuitable for any purpose other than mechanical curiosity.

   Synonyms

   innovation, origination, creation, design, contraption, contrivance, construction, device, gadget, apparatus, machine

   discovery

   coinage

   informal brainchild, gizmo, widget
2. 1.2 Creative ability.
   发明才能，创造能力
   his powers of invention were rather limited

   他的创造力相当有限。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • These are the paintings which seem to me to proclaim Rembrandt's powers of invention and execution as of a different order from contemporaries and pupils.
   • Against this background, itself a testament to endeavour, the modern objects testify to the great diversity of invention and to human creativity.
   • The development of new technology was always a matter of invention - of creative solutions.
   • Yet these are still fascinating questions, questions that provoke us and bring forth all kinds of creative thought and invention.
   • Think also of our creative invention in the languages that we know well.
   • The outlaw as defiant nonconformist, as well as social outcast, parallels being an artist who makes functional objects and being an individual who takes pride in the power of invention and skill.
   • Schoenberg opened the flood gates of creative invention and, along the way, may have driven a schism between composers and their audiences.
   • In my view, American board game manufacturers have always considered design secondary to invention and placed the novel and gimmicky over solid ideas.
   • It's about taking actions every day in a sensible way with a little bit of creativity and invention.
   • Despite the praise given to Burgess's powers of invention, much of his work derives from real-life scenarios.
   • He represents two human figures of his own textual invention and creation whose particular forms make up the variables of his experiments: the body of a blind woman and that of a hunchback man.
   • Huge amounts of energy, invention, and creativity that could have gone into science or technology and into improving the quality of life are channelled into security.
   • Jan's technical ability, artistic invention, and intellect were universally recognized, by writers and artists in Italy as well as the Netherlands.
   • By exercising its considerable powers of invention, and by manipulating light and geometry, the practice has completely altered the space.
   • Produced in the studio, his works are based on his memory and powers of invention.
   • Reclaiming this moment in the history of rhetorical memory reintroduces memory as a process of imagination and invention.
   • Always remember that moving from an interesting but vague idea, to specific and actionable is the difficult part of creation and invention.
   • The notion of invention, of creation, is submerged in the long line of intellectual forebears.
   • Why unrefined, ill-informed, loose oral expressions seem to displace thoroughness, creativity, innovation, invention and skill.
   • In dry climates, necessity has become the mother of invention in garden design.

   Synonyms

   inventiveness, originality, creativity, creativeness, imagination, imaginativeness, inspiration

   ingenuity, ingeniousness, resourcefulness, initiative, enterprise

   genius, brilliance, vision
3. 1.3count noun Something fabricated or made up.
   捏造，虚构
   you know my story is an invention

   你知道我的故事纯属虚构。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The legend of Robin Hood, inventions or stories on which intellectual property protections have lapsed, and the Linux operating system are simply not cases of ownership at all.
   • When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site.
   • Tolkien was more preoccupied with his invention of an artificial mythology than with character development.
   • Sure it might be about identity as ‘an invention based on myths and half-truths’, but is also typical of most video art - boring.
   • Or was the latest story a pure invention to enable the government to avoid Washington's displeasure?
   • But so what if their stories are inventions that have been thoroughly discredited?
   • If the invention of such a story would be possible, it would have been imitated many, many times; one just can't invent such a story and get away with it.
   • He seduces us easily with the mythology of their marriage, its collaborative fictional invention.
   • A hunter of big names, he hungered to become one himself, and won through the invention of his fairy tales.
   • Different writers define memes in different ways, but they include ideas, skills, habits, inventions, stories, you name it.
   • The invention, the story, the gags make it all irresistible and completely satisfying.

   Synonyms

   fabrication, concoction, fiction, piece of fiction, yarn, story, tale, figment of one's imagination

   lie, untruth, falsehood, fib, trumped-up story

   myth, fantasy

   informal tall story, fairy story, fairy tale, cock and bull story, red herring

   kidology
4. 1.4 Used as a title for a short piece of music.
   创意曲（短乐曲的题目）
   Bach's two-part Inventions

   巴赫的两声部创意曲。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Bach wrote a number of 2-part and 3-part Inventions for keyboard.
   • At least a few of Bach's two-part inventions are well-known to beginning piano students, general media consumers and, sadly, cell-phone users.