Noun

(en-noun)

(label) Mental focus.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.}}

* , chapter=3

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, volume=100, issue=2, page=87, magazine=(American Scientist)

, title= The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.}}

(label) An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.

* 1818 , (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), (Frankenstein); or, the Modern Prometheus , ch. 3,

She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper.

* 1910 , (Stephen Leacock), " ,

For some time past I have been the recipient of very marked attentions from a young lady.

A state of alertness in the standing position.

Noun

(en noun)

Something invented.

* 1944 November 28, Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:

Warren Sheffield is telephoning Rose long distance at half past six. Personally, I wouldn't marry a man who proposed to me over an invention .

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-10-05, volume=409, issue=8856, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The widening gyre , passage=British inventions have done more to influence the shape of the modern world than those of any other country. Many—football, the steam engine and Worcestershire sauce, to take a random selection—have spread pleasure, goodwill and prosperity. Others—the Maxim gun, the Shrapnel shell and jellied eels—have not.}}

The act of inventing.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=Digging deeper, the invention of eyeglasses is an elaboration of the more fundamental development of optics technology. The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,

The capacity to invent.

(music) A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two-'' and ''Three-part Inventions .

* 1880 , (George Grove) (editor and entry author), , page 15, Invention:

INVENTION .?A term used by J. S. Bach, and probably by him only, for small pianoforte pieces?—?15 in 2 parts and 15 in 3 parts?—?each developing a single idea, and in some measure answering to the Impromptu of a later day.

(label) The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.