English

Etymology

From invention +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

Adjective

inventional (comparative more inventional, superlative most inventional)

  1. Of or pertaining to invention, creativity, or the act of devising something new.
  2. (rhetoric) Pertaining to rhetorical invention (the method used to find arguments or topoi in speech or writing).

Derived terms

Citations

  • 1876, William George Spencer, Inventional Geometry: A Series of Problems Intended to Familiarize the Pupil with Geometrical Conceptions, D. Appleton and Company:
    It is the object of this intellectual exercise to develop the inventional faculty.
  • 1989, Robert C. Aden, “Inventional metaphors in Ronald Reagan's economic rhetoric”, in Quarterly Journal of Speech, volume 75, number 3, pages 336–346:
    Inventional metaphoric analysis provides communication scholars a tool with which to investigate rhetoric over a period of time.
  • 1991, John Lyne, “The Public Understanding of Science—A Rhetorical Invention”, in Journal of Rhetoric, volume 10, number 2, JSTOR, page 690276:
    Now, although White at several points made apparent that he locates science outside of the narratological and inventional rhetorical knowledge he described...
  • 2011 August 13, Neal Gabler, “The Elusive Big Idea”, in The New York Times[1]:
    Entrepreneurs have plenty of ideas, and some, like Steven P. Jobs of Apple, have come up with some brilliant ideas in the "inventional" sense of the word.
  • 2021, Zhengying Guo, Ying Yuan, “Tracing and Refining the Inventional Topoi”, in Linguistics and Literature Studies, volume 9, number 2, pages 63–70:
    Tracing and Refining the Inventional Topoi...
  • 2025, L. Keränen, “Inventional Resources for Critical Health Communication”, in Biocriticism in a Time of Precarity, Taylor & Francis:
    Biocriticism in a Time of Precarity: Inventional Resources for Critical Health Communication.