invest

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪnˈvest/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin investīre (“to clothe, cover, surround”),^[2][3][4] perhaps also through French investir,^[5][6] from in- “in, into” and vestīre “to dress, clothe”,^[3][2] from vestis (“clothing”) (see vest),^[7][6] which Watkins and Etymonline take from the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *eu- (“to dress”), the root also of wear.^[3][7] The financial sense was borrowed from Italian investire, with the notion of giving one's capital a new form.^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To clothe in the insignia of an office, to install in a rank: 1533–34 in Barnhart, about 1534 in MWU.^[2][4] Etymonline has the late 14th century, of clothing in official robes.^[3] Word Origins explains that someone formally installed in an office was once ceremonially dressed for it.^[7]

Semantic evolution

To cover or surround as with a garment is from 1548, and to clothe a person in a garment from 1583.^[8] To surround a place with a hostile force, besiege, is from the 16th century.^[5] The figurative sense, to endow with qualities, is first in Shakespeare's Othello (1604).^[2][8] To lay out money in something expected to give a profit appears in letters and journals of the East India trade in 1613–16;^[2][3][4] Barnhart thinks the Italian financial use passed through the Levant Company to the East India Company, from which it became general in the 18th century.^[2] Investiture is from before 1387,^[2] and investment meant vestments in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV (1597) before it meant the investing of capital in the 17th century.^[2][5]

Timeline

• before 1387 – investiture.^[2]
• 1533 – to install in office.^[2]
• 1548 – to surround, cover.^[8]
• 1604 – to endow with qualities, in Shakespeare.^[2][8]
• 1613 – to lay out money for profit.^[2][4]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To put money into shares, property or a business in the hope of a profit.
2. To spend time, effort or money on something for a future benefit.
3. To give someone power, authority or a quality; to install formally in an office.
4. (military, dated) To surround a place with troops; to besiege.

Word family

• investable
• investor
• disinvest
• investiture
• overinvest
• reinvest
• underinvest
• investment

Related words

• divest
• vest
• vestment
• vesture
• wear

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press