[
US
/kənˈtɹaɪvəns/
]
[ UK /kəntɹˈaɪvəns/ ]
[ UK /kəntɹˈaɪvəns/ ]
NOUN
-
an elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade
his testimony was just a contrivance to throw us off the track - a device or control that is very useful for a particular job
- any improvised arrangement for temporary use
-
an artificial or unnatural or obviously contrived arrangement of details or parts etc.
the plot contained too many improbable contrivances to be believable - the act of devising something
-
the faculty of contriving; inventive skill
his skillful contrivance of answers to every problem
How To Use contrivance In A Sentence
- Even if you look past some of the unbelievable contrivances of this portrayal of the U. S. judicial system and just basic common sense, there's nothing that really stands out in this movie.
- 'She'd have been just the thing for me!' cried Lynmere, haughtily rising, and conceitedly parading his fine form up and down the room; his eyes catching it from looking-glass to looking glass, by every possible contrivance; 'just the thing! matched to perfection!' Camilla
- He studied also the contrivances of certain insectivorous plants, such as the Drosera and the Dionaea, to seize their prey. Evolution créatrice. English
- Eskimo kaiak or skin boat, made of dressed seal hides stretched around a framework of whale ribs or wood, with an opening in the top only large enough to accommodate the sitting body of one man, is one of the most perfect contrivances in the world for water travel, being light, swift, and practically unsinkable. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
- In our scheme of things it matters not, or it is of no import, whether the people intervene by accident of fate or by way of contrivance.
- They don't romanticize the instrument's folk origins or go in for New Age contrivances.
- Perhaps the idea of a self is a modern, bourgeois contrivance. Times, Sunday Times
- That other machine may, in like manner, have proceeded from a former machine: nor does that alter the case; the contrivance must have had a contriver.
- They wear simple clothes and shun modern contrivances.
- I happen to know every detail of the hellish contrivance, and I can tell you it will be the most finished piece of blackguardism since the Borgias. The Thirty-Nine Steps