invest

Formsinvests, investing, invested

Pluralinvests

1. 1
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To commit money or capital in the hope of gaining a financial return.

   Many families invest in property to build long-term wealth.

   He invested heavily in the company before it went public.

   Similarfund, finance, back

   Oppositedivest

2. 2
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To spend money, time, or energy on something, usually for a benefit or purpose.

   The team chose to invest in better tools to speed up the work.

   He invested years of effort in mastering the violin.

   Similarspend, devote, commit, put, expend

   Note

   A spending sense with its own route into English: the money meaning probably came through Italian investire, from the same Latin root behind the clothing meaning. Its preposition is in, as in investing time in a project, though into appears beside it, as in hours invested into an event. Money, time and energy all fit, and what is spent is expected to pay something back.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To put money into financial assets with the aim of earning a return.

   He learned how to invest wisely after years of mistakes.

   Those who invest regularly tend to build wealth over time.

   Note

   The same activity as committing capital, but with the object dropped. People simply invest, invest wisely or invest regularly, and the money is understood. Use this pattern when the habit or skill is the point. When the asset matters, name it: invest in property, invest in a company.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To formally grant someone power or authority.

   The constitution invests the president with command of the armed forces.

   Parliament moved to invest the council with new authority.

   Similarvest, endow, empower, entrust

   Oppositedivest, strip, deprive

   Note

   The person is the object here, and the power follows with. Shakespeare's Lear says, I do invest you jointly with my power. Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great drops the preposition and names a title instead, investing someone Empress of the East. Turn the sentence around and you get the power-as-object pattern, in which authority is invested in someone.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To install someone in an office through a formal ceremony.

   The university invested its new chancellor in a grand ceremony.

   Officials will invest the new abbot before the assembled monks.

   Similarinstall, inaugurate, induct, instate, ordain

   Oppositedepose, unseat, oust

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To place power or authority officially in someone's hands, as by law, charter, or ceremony.

   The charter invests considerable authority in the board of trustees.

   They voted to invest sweeping powers in the emergency office.

   Similarvest, lodge, place, confer, repose

   Note

   Here the authority itself is the object, and the holder usually follows in, as when a charter invests powers in a board. Francis Bacon, writing before 1626, could leave the holder out entirely. In his sentence, an inequality between man and man investeth a right of government, as though the right were created rather than handed to someone.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To become deeply involved in something or form a strong emotional attachment to it.

   Fans who invest emotionally in a show feel real loss when it ends.

   She invested deeply in her community over the years.

   Similarcommit, engage

   Note

   This sense usually appears in the passive: someone is invested in a relationship, a cause or a vision, as in Sarah Varland's Tundra Threat (2014) and James Graham's Tory Boyz (2015). Heavily and deeply are its natural intensifiers. It sits close to spending time or energy on something, but there the effort is the point. Here the point is the personal stake someone feels in how things turn out.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To surround something completely, wrapping or covering it on every side.

   Like a cloak drawn tight around the body, leaving nothing uncovered.

   A dense mist invested the harbor, hiding the ships from view.

   Clouds invest the summit each evening, covering it completely.

   Similarenvelop, shroud, cover, surround, cloak

   Note

   The clothing image widened to anything that covers. In John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), night invests the sea and lays darkness over it like a cloak. The subjects tend to be darkness, mist or cloud, and what they cover is wrapped whole. A close relative is the siege meaning, where troops close around a town in the same way.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To surround a fortified place with troops in order to besiege it.

   The general planned to invest the fortress and cut off its supplies.

   Enemy forces invested the port city throughout the long campaign.

   Similarbesiege, surround, blockade, encircle, beleaguer

   Oppositerelieve

   Note

   Military English for closing a ring around a place: you invest a town, a fortress or a castle. The attackers need not be an army. In Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), a band of fanatics invests a castle and shouts for a man to be brought out to them. Its plainest everyday equivalent is besiege.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To surround, accompany, or attend someone or something.

    Courtiers invested the monarch during every public appearance.

    An air of mystery seemed to invest the old house.

    Similarsurround, attend, accompany, envelop, pervade

    Note

    A word for the atmosphere that hangs about a person or scene. The subjects are often moods rather than people. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), awe invests a spectacle of guilt and shame. In Melville's Moby-Dick, a sublime uneventfulness invests the whaler. It sits close to the covering sense, with feeling in place of mist.

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