Invent vs. Discover — What's the Difference?

To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination.

To notice or learn, especially by making an effort

To make up; fabricate

To be the first, or the first of one's group or kind, to find, learn of, or observe.

To design a new process or mechanism.

To learn about for the first time in one's experience

To create something fictional for a particular purpose.

To learn something about

(obsolete) To come upon; to find; to discover.

To identify (a person) as a potentially prominent performer

To come or light upon; to meet; to find.

(Archaic) To reveal or expose.

To discover, as by study or inquiry; to find out; to devise; to contrive or produce for the first time; - applied commonly to the discovery of some serviceable mode, instrument, or machine.

To find or learn something for the first time.

To frame by the imagination; to fabricate mentally; to forge; - in a good or a bad sense; as, to invent the machinery of a poem; to invent a falsehood.

To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).

Come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or priciple) after a mental effort;

To expose, uncover.

Make up something artificial or untrue

To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.

To question (a person) as part of discovery in a lawsuit.

To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.

To reconnoitre, explore (an area).

(obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.

To uncover.

To disclose; to lay open to view; to make visible; to reveal; to make known; to show (what has been secret, unseen, or unknown).

To obtain for the first time sight or knowledge of, as of a thing existing already, but not perceived or known; to find; to ascertain; to espy; to detect.

To manifest without design; to show.

To explore; to examine.

To discover or show one's self.

Discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of;

Make a discovery, make a new finding;

Get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally;

Make a discovery;

Find unexpectedly;

Make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret;

See for the first time; make a discovery;

Identify as in botany or biology, for example