contrivance

1. 1.

   a device or control that is very useful for a particular job

   Synonymsappliancecontraptionconveniencegadgetgizmogismowidget

   Broaderdevice

   Narrowergadgetrygimbalinjectormod con
2. 2.

   the faculty of contriving; inventive skill

   “his skillful contrivance of answers to every problem”

   Broaderinvention
3. 3.

   an elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade

   “his testimony was just a contrivance to throw us off the track”

   Synonymsstratagemdodge

   Broaderscheme

   Narrowerplantpump-and-dump schemewangle
4. 4.

   an artificial or unnatural or obviously contrived arrangement of details or parts etc.

   “the plot contained too many improbable contrivances to be believable”

   Broaderarrangement
5. 5.

   any improvised arrangement for temporary use

   Synonymslash-up

   Broaderarrangement

   Narrowertemporary hookup
6. 6.

   the act of devising something

   Synonymsdevisal

   Broaderinvention

Other forms of contrivance

plural

contrivances·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about contrivance

What does contrivance mean?

contrivance means "a device or control that is very useful for a particular job". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in contrivance?

contrivance has 3 syllables: con-tri-vance. The stress falls on "tri". In IPA it is /kənˈtɹaɪvəns/.

What is another word for contrivance?

Close synonyms include appliance, contraption, convenience, gadget, gizmo. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is contrivance a common word?

contrivance is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.