Contrive

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /kənˈtɹaɪv/

Definitions

1. To plan or devise something cleverly, often using skill and ingenuity to overcome difficulties or create something from limited resources
2. To engineer or arrange something deliberately through cunning effort and limited resources in order to achieve a desired outcome
3. To create or bring about through skillful planning and resourceful effort, often in a deliberate or artful manner
4. To arrange or construct something through cunning design and deliberate orchestration of circumstances or elements

Etymology: "Contrive" started out meaning almost the opposite of what it does now. In Middle English it meant simply "to invent" or "to devise", and the sense of arranging things through clever scheming came later. The word is an alteration of the Middle English "contreve" or "controve", borrowed in the 14th century from Old French "controver", which was built on "trover", meaning "to find". So at root, to contrive was to come up with something, a meaning that still sits underneath the modern word. The surprising link is with "retrieve", which comes from the same Old French family and kept the older vowel pattern. "Contrive" shifted its vowel to an -i- sound, and the reason for that change is unclear. Its French relative, "controuver", survives in modern French with the same sense of inventing or fabricating.

Synonyms: devise, fabricate, engineer, invent, concoct

Antonyms: destroy, dismantle, disorganize, neglect, ruin