devise

The act of leaving real property in a will.

Noun

The act of leaving real property in a will.
Such a will, or a clause in such a will.
- Fines upon devises were still exacted. - 1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and...
The real property left in such a will.
Design, devising.
- I don't know how I got to be so sour on life, but I'm constantly in solitary confinement of my own devise, […] - 2010, Carl Anderson, Fragments of a Scattered Brain, →ISBN, page 83:

From Middle French devise. Doublet of device.

To use one’s intellect to plan or design (something).
- Near-synonyms: lay, set, design, plan, create
- to devise an argument; to devise a machine, or a new system of writing
- Therefore to make complaynt Of such mysadvysed Parsons and dysgysed, Thys boke we have devysed, […] - c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete...
Synonyms: lay set design plan create
To leave (property) in a will.
To form a scheme; to lay a plan; to contrive; to consider.
- I thought, devised, and Pallas heard my prayer. - 1725, Homer, “Book IX”, in [William Broome], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume II, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC:
To plan or scheme for; to plot to obtain.
- For wisedome is most riches; fooles therefore / They are, which fortunes doe by vowes deuize, - 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie,...
To imagine; to guess.
- I do protest I neuer iniur’d thee, But lou’d thee better then thou can’st deuise: Till thou shalt know the reason of my loue. - c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in...

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English devisen, devysen, from Old French deviser, from Vulgar Latin devisō, from Latin dīvisō, frequentative of dīvidō.