invests

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of invest.

   He invests his bonus in index funds each December.

   The company invests heavily in renewable energy projects.

   Note

   The -s form that every sense of the verb shares, from money to ceremony. With money, time or energy it takes in (she invests in her training). The older senses use the same spelling: clothing someone, wrapping or covering something, and installing someone in office. Dressing someone in garments now sounds dated. The identical spelling also belongs to the weather-watchers' noun, a separate word with its own origin.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of invest.

   By midweek the meteorologists were tracking three invests in the Atlantic basin.

   Only a fraction of these seasonal invests ever strengthen into named storms.

   Note

   A forecaster's plural. Each invest is a patch of disturbed weather placed under watch because it might grow into a tropical cyclone. The word therefore counts candidates, not storms: three invests in a basin are three possibilities still being monitored. Keep it apart from the verb form for spending, which only shares its spelling.

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