Search the Dictionary

arance of possessing a certain character; as, pretensions to scholarship. This was but an invention and pretension given out by the Spaniards. Bacon. Men indulge those opinions and practices that favor their pretensions. L'Estrange.

mill for grinding grain, the upper stone of which was turned by hand; -- used before the invention of windmills and watermills. Shak. They made him at the querne grind. Chaucer.

mong my other discredits. Shak. A theory, which, how much soever it may relish of wit and invention, hath no foundation in nature. Woodward.

the word before vessels full of traditionary pottage resenting of the wild gourd of human invention. Fuller.

r the like. Small sand-colored stones, so hard as to scratch glass.Grew. Be mindful, when invention fails., To scratch your head, and bite your nails.Swift.

kets; hence, colloquially, not genuine; sham; pretentious; as, shoddy aristocracy. Shoddy inventions designed to bolster up a factitious pride. Compton Reade.

heard; hence, to seem; to appear; as, this reproof sounds harsh; the story sounds like an invention. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair Shak. To sound in or into, to tend to; to partake of the nature of; to be consonant with. [Obs., except in the phrase To sound in damages, below.…

s, as of charges against a public officer, the terms of a contract, the description of an invention, as in a patent; also, a single article, item, or particular, an allegation of a specific act, as in a charge of official misconduct.

Not yet caused to be, or to be made; as, possible inventions still unoriginated.

pon wantonness, and them that did rebel upon want. Bacon. This advantage we lost upon the invention of firearms. Addison. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to avoid that perpetual repetition of the same epithets which we find in Homer. Pope. He had abandoned the frontiers, retiring upon Glasgow. Sir. W. Scott. Phili…

Art or skill of the mind; contrivance; invention; wit. [Obs.] Camden.