inventor

/ɪnˈvɛntər/

/ɪnˈvɛntə/

Other forms: inventors

The person who first comes up with a brand new idea or thing is its inventor. A woman named Mary Anderson, for example, is credited with being the inventor of the windshield wiper blade for cars.

Lewis Latimer invented many things during his lifetime, and drafted the patent for the telephone (with fellow inventor Alexander Graham Bell). Oddly enough, Latimer's first work as an inventor was developing a restroom for train cars, in 1874. In the 1940s, actress Hedy Lamarr was the inventor of a communications technology that eventually made wireless technology, including cell phones, possible. In Latin, inventor means "contriver, author, or discoverer."

Definitions of inventor

1. noun

   someone who is the first to think of or make something
   synonyms: artificer, discoverer

   examples:

   Alexander Graham Bell

   United States inventor (born in Scotland) of the telephone [phone])

   Sir Henry Bessemer

   British inventor and metallurgist who developed the Bessemer process (1813-1898)

   John Moses Browning

   United States inventor of firearms (especially automatic pistols and repeating rifles and a machine gun called the Peacemaker) (1855-1926)

   William Seward Burroughs

   United States inventor who patented the first practical adding machine (1855-1898)

   Father of the Submarine

   American inventor who in 1775 designed a man-propelled submarine that was ineffectual but subsequently earned him recognition as a submarine pioneer (1742-1824)

   Edmund Cartwright

   English clergyman who invented the power loom (1743-1823)

   Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre

   French inventor of the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype (1789-1851)

   Father of Radio

   United States electrical engineer who in 1907 patented the first triode vacuum tube, which made it possible to detect and amplify radio waves (1873-1961)

   George Eastman

   United States inventor of a dry-plate process of developing photographic film and of flexible film (his firm introduced roll film) and of the box camera and of a process for color photography (1854-1932)

   Thomas Alva Edison

   United States inventor; inventions included the phonograph and incandescent electric light and the microphone and the Kinetoscope (1847-1931)

   Robert Fulton

   American inventor who designed the first commercially successful steamboat and the first steam warship (1765-1815)

   Richard Jordan Gatling

   United States inventor of the first rapid firing gun (1818-1903)

   King Camp Gilette

   United States inventor and manufacturer who developed the safety razor (1855-1932)

   Peter Carl Goldmark

   United States inventor (born in Hungary) who made the first TV broadcast in 1940 and invented the long-playing record in 1948 and pioneered videocassette recording (1906-1977)

   Charles Goodyear

   United States inventor of vulcanized rubber (1800-1860)

   James Hargreaves

   English inventor of the spinning jenny (1720-1778)

   Hero of Alexandria

   Greek mathematician and inventor who devised a way to determine the area of a triangle and who described various mechanical devices (first century)

   Herman Hollerith

   United States inventor who invented a system for recording alphanumeric information on punched cards (1860-1929)

   Elias Howe

   United States inventor who built early sewing machines and won suits for patent infringement against other manufacturers (including Isaac M. Singer) (1819-1867)

   Joseph Marie Jacquard

   French inventor of the Jacquard loom that could automatically weave complicated patterns (1752-1834)

   Edwin Herbert Land

   United States inventor who incorporated Polaroid film into lenses and invented the one step photographic process (1909-1991)

   Samuel Pierpoint Langley

   United States astronomer and aviation pioneer who invented the bolometer and contributed to the design of early aircraft (1834-1906)

   Peter Paul Mauser

   German arms manufacturer and inventor of a repeating rifle and pistol (1838-1914)

   Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim

   English inventor (born in the United States) who invented the Maxim gun that was used in World War I (1840-1916)

   Cyrus Hall McCormick

   United States inventor and manufacturer of a mechanical harvester (1809-1884)

   Ottmar Mergenthaler

   United States inventor (born in Germany) of the Linotype machine (1854-1899)

   Samuel Finley Breese Morse

   United States portrait painter who patented the telegraph and developed the Morse code (1791-1872)

   Edward James Muggeridge

   United States motion-picture pioneer remembered for his pictures of running horses taken with a series of still cameras (born in England) (1830-1904)

   Elisha Graves Otis

   United States inventor who manufactured the first elevator with a safety device (1811-1861)

   Isaac Merrit Singer

   United States inventor of an improved chain-stitch sewing machine (1811-1875)

   Elmer Ambrose Sperry

   United States engineer and inventor of the gyrocompass (1860-1930)

   Francis Edgar Stanley

   United States inventor who built a steam-powered automobile (1849-1918)

   Charles Proteus Steinmetz

   United States electrical engineer and inventor (born in Germany) (1865-1923)

   William Henry Fox Talbot

   English inventor and pioneer in photography who published the first book illustrated with photographs (1800-1877)

   Nikola Tesla

   United States electrical engineer and inventor (born in Croatia but of Serbian descent) who discovered the principles of alternating currents and developed the first alternating-current induction motor and the Tesla coil and several forms of oscillators (1856-1943)

   James Watt

   Scottish engineer and inventor whose improvements in the steam engine led to its wide use in industry (1736-1819)

   George Westinghouse

   United States inventor and manufacturer (1846-1914)

   Sir Charles Wheatstone

   English physicist and inventor who devised the Wheatstone bridge (1802-1875)

   Eli Whitney

   United States inventor of the mechanical cotton gin (1765-1825)

   Orville Wright

   United States aviation pioneer who (with his brother Wilbur Wright) invented the airplane (1871-1948)

   Wilbur Wright

   United States aviation pioneer who (with his brother Orville Wright) invented the airplane (1867-1912)

   Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin

   German inventor who designed and built the first rigid motorized dirigible (1838-1917)

   types:

   patentee

   the inventor to whom a patent is issued

   type of:

   creator

   a person who grows or makes or invents things