the.com/device
A tool with ambitions — and sometimes a hidden agenda.
means An object made or adapted for a specific purpose — a tool, gadget, or mechanism designed to do a job.
from From Old French devis, meaning a division, plan, or wish, rooted in the Latin dividere — to divide. The idea was that a 'device' starts as a plan or design you divide out of your own intention, a scheme shaped to a purpose. That's why English still keeps the double life of the word: a 'device' can be a physical gadget, but 'to leave someone to their own devices' means to leave them to their own designs and wishes. The gadget sense grew naturally out of the planning sense — a device is a plan made solid.
- double meaning
- can mean gadget or sneaky plot
- shared root
- related to divide and devise
- idiom survivor
- left to their own devices keeps old sense alive
- literary term
- literary device means a technique, not a tool