Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Contrive

Con·trive′ (kŏn·trīv′), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Contrived; p. pr. & vb. n. Contriving.] [OE. contriven, contreven, controven, to invent, OF. controver, contruver; con- + trouver to find. See Troubadour, trover.] To form by an exercise of ingenuity; to devise; to invent; to design; to plan.

What more likely to contrive this admirable frame of the universe than infinite wisdom. Tillotson.

neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life. Hawthorne.

Syn. — To invent; discover; plan; design; project; plot; concert; hatch.

Con·trive′, v. i. To make devices; to form designs; to plan; to scheme; to plot.

The Fates with traitors do contrive. Shak.

Thou hast contrived against th very life Of the defendant. Shak.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.