From Middle English contreve (“to invent”), from Old French controver (Modern French controuver), from trover (“to find”) (French trouver).

• IPA^(key): /kənˈtɹaɪv/

• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -aɪv

contrive (third-person singular simple present contrives, present participle contriving, simple past and past participle contrived)

1. To invent by an exercise of ingeniosity; to devise

   Synonyms: plan, scheme, plot, hatch, get

   • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:

     […] I cannot bear the idea of two young women traveling post by themselves. It is highly improper. You must contrive to send somebody.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter:

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

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.

2. To invent, to make devices; to form designs especially by improvisation.
3. To project, cast, or set forth, as in a projection of light.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To spend (time, or a period).

• becast
• cast about

• renovict