CONTRIVANCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Contrivance

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kəntrˈaɪvəns/ Listen

noun

Contrivance n.

The act or faculty of contriving, inventing, devising, or planning. "The machine which we are inspecting demonstrates, by its construction, contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver."

The thing contrived, invented, or planned; disposition of parts or causes by design; a scheme; plan; artifice; arrangement. "Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants."

Synonyms: Device; plan; scheme; invention; machine; project; design; artifice; shift. See Device.

See images of 'Contrivance'

Etymology of 'Contrivance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Contrivance" Quotes from Famous Books

... In the cellar is a neat little room of four solid walls—no windows. There is a slight crack at the bottom, and through this, by a contrivance of my own, I can let in the waters of the river. The door is solid, and, once locked in, you cannot get out. I believe that this is a fitting death for a police spy. What do ...

— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... his country, "Shure it will be time enough to think of that when the could weather sets in." Everything about the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as ...

— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... in the possession of an entire first floor. His bed-room had now a distinct existence. He had not enjoyed it for a week, before the water with which he performed his daily ablutions was insinuated by a cunning contrivance through the ceiling, and dismissed afterwards, as cleverly, through the floor. Hot water came through the wall at any hour of the day, and a constant artificial ventilation was maintained around his bed by night and day. There was no end to the artifices which the ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... in burrows on the open plain, and not among the woods, like the other species. They are the most cunning of American animals, not excepting their kindred the foxes. They cannot be trapped by any contrivance, but by singular manoeuvres often themselves decoy the over-curious antelope to approach too near them. When a gun is fired upon the prairies they may be seen starting up on all sides, and running for the spot in hopes of coming in for a share of the game. Should an animal—deer, ...

— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... The clumsy contrivance for murder without criminality, which Reuben suggested, is an instance of the shallow pretexts with which the sophistry of sin fools men before they have done the wrong thing. Sin's mask is generally dropped very soon after. ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

More quotes...