Adjacent Words

Inventive definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

INVENT'IVE, a. Able to invent; quick at contrivance; ready at expedients; as an inventive head or genius.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: (used of persons or artifacts) marked by independence and creativity in thought or action; "an imaginative use of material"; "the invention of the knitting frame by another ingenious English clergyman"- Lewis Mumford; "an ingenious device"; "had an inventive turn of mind"; "inventive ceramics" [syn: imaginative, inventive]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 15th century 1. adept or prolific at producing inventions ; creative <an inventive mind> 2. characterized by invention <an inventive method> • inventively adverb • inventiveness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 able or inclined to invent; original in devising. 2 showing ingenuity of devising. Derivatives: inventively adv. inventiveness n. Etymology: ME f. F inventif -ive or med.L inventivus (as INVENT)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Inventive In*vent"ive, a. [Cf. F. inventif.] Able and apt to invent; quick at contrivance; ready at expedients; as, an inventive head or genius. --Dryden. -- In*vent"ive*ly, adv. -- In*vent"ive*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

An inventive person is good at inventing things or has clever and original ideas. It inspired me to be more inventive with my own cooking. = creative ADJ • inventiveness He has surprised us before with his inventiveness.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Ingenious, creative, quick at contrivance, fertile in expedients.

Moby Thesaurus

Machiavellian, Machiavellic, abecedarian, aboriginal, acute, antenatal, arch, artful, astute, autochthonous, beginning, budding, cagey, canny, causative, clever, conceptive, conceptual, constructive, crafty, creative, cunning, cute, deceitful, deep, deep-laid, demiurgic, designing, diplomatic, elemental, elementary, embryonic, esemplastic, fecund, feline, fertile, fetal, formative, foundational, foxy, fruitful, fundamental, generative, germinal, gestatory, guileful, ideational, ideative, imaginative, in embryo, in its infancy, in the bud, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular, infant, infantile, ingenious, initial, initiative, initiatory, innovational, innovative, insidious, inspired, introductory, knowing, nascent, natal, notional, original, originative, parturient, pawky, politic, postnatal, pregnant, prenatal, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, procreative, productive, prolific, ready, resourceful, rudimental, rudimentary, scheming, seminal, serpentine, shaping, sharp, shifty, shrewd, slick, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, stealthy, strategic, subtile, subtle, supple, tactical, teeming, trickish, tricksy, tricky, ur, visioned, vulpine, wary, wily