device [ME] The original sense of device was ‘desire, intention’, which is found now only in to leave a person to their own devices [ME] and in the Book of Common Prayer: ‘We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.’ The source of device is a French form based on Latin dividere ‘to divide’. Its sense developed from ‘desire, intention’ to ‘a plan, scheme, trick’ and then the usual modern meaning of ‘a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose’.