3 uses
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Definition
to come up with a way of doing something — typically a creative idea or plan
- I wanted simplicity and denied complexity, and in this I was guileful and suppressed many patents in my secret heart, and was as devising as anybody else.Chapter 19 (35% in)
- ...over us, bald, whiskery, with a fat nose, greatly armored in a cutaway, a double-breasted vest, powerfully buttoned (his blue photo, enlarged and retouched by Mr. Lulov, hung in the parlor, doubled back between the portico columns of the full-length mirror, the dome of the stove beginning where his trunk ended)—she preferred to live with us, because for so many years she was used to direct a house, to command, to govern, to manage, scheme, devise, and intrigue in all her languages.Chapter 1 (20% in)
- I figure that for a while she'd have said to herself, "What I don't see with my own eyes won't hurt me"—this not quite deliberate blindness but the tight grasp of people who devise very deeply.Chapter 22 (92% in)
There are no more uses of "devise" in The Adventures of Augie March.
Typical Usage
(best examples)