invention

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of inventing.
• noun A new device, method, or process developed from study and experimentation.
• noun A mental fabrication, especially a falsehood.
• noun Skill in inventing; inventiveness.
• noun Music A short composition developing a single theme contrapuntally.
• noun A discovery; a finding.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A finding. [Obsolete, or archaic, as in the phrase Invention of the Cross. See cross.]
• noun The act or process of finding out how to make something previously unknown, or how to do something in a new way; original contrivance; creation by a new use of means: as, the invention of printing; the invention of the steamengine, or of an improved steam-engine.
• noun That which is invented; something previously unknown, or some new modification of an existing thing, produced by an original use of means; an original contrivance or device. When used absolutely, it generally denotes a new mechanical device, or a new process in one of the useful arts.
• noun Specifically, in music, a short piece in which a single thought is worked out, usually contrapuntally, but with the comparative simplicity of an impromptu or of a study.
• noun The act of producing by the exercise of the imagination; mental fabrication or creation: as, the invention of plots or of excuses.
• noun The faculty or power of inventing; skill or ingenuity in original contrivance; the gift of finding out or producing new forms, methods, processes, effects, etc.; in art and lit., the exercise of imagination in production; the creative faculty.
• noun A coming in; arrival.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of finding out or inventing; contrivance or construction of that which has not before existed
• noun That which is invented; an original contrivance or construction; a device
• noun Thought; idea.
• noun A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a falsehood.
• noun The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new.
• noun (Fine Arts, Rhet., etc.) 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.
• noun (Eccl.) a festival celebrated May 3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St. Helena.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun Something invented.
• noun The act of inventing.
• noun The capacity to invent.
• noun music A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-part Inventions.
• noun archaic The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the creation of something in the mind
• noun a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation
• noun the act of inventing