The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Invention \In*ven"tion\, n. [L. inventio: cf. F. invention. See
   Invent.]
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   1. 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.
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            As the search of it [truth] is the duty, so the
            invention will be the happiness of man. --Tatham.
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   2. 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; she
      patented five inventions.
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            We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention
            to let one fall if not premonished.   --Evelyn.
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   3. Thought; idea. --Shak.
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   4. A fabrication to deceive; a fiction; a forgery; a
      falsehood.
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            Filling their hearers
            With strange invention.               --Shak.
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   5. The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or
      ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of
      invention.
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            They lay no less than a want of invention to his
            charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a
            maker.                                --Dryden.
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   6. (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.
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   Invention of the cross (Eccl.), a festival celebrated May
      3d, in honor of the finding of our Savior's cross by St.
      Helena.
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