investire

Forms

investire (first-person singular present invèsto, first-person singular past historic investìi, past participle investìto, auxiliary avére or (intransitive in the nautical meaning) èssere)^[1] Old forms include invistire and envistire.^[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin investiō (“to clothe, adorn, surround”).^[3][4][5][1] In Medieval Latin the verb meant to put someone in possession of a fief or a dignity, because the feudal grant was made with a ceremony of clothing, the investiture.^[4][6][7][8]

The Latin verb is formed with the prefix in- on vestiō (“to clothe”), from vestis (“clothing”).^[3][5] That noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *wes-ti-, from the root of Ancient Greek ἕννυμι (hénnumi, “to clothe”) and Sanskrit वस्ते (váste, “wears”).^[9]

The verb is learned in the other Romance languages too: French investir and Spanish investir.^[4][10] Popular outcomes are Sicilian mmèstiri and Romanian învesti.^[11][12] The sense “to attack” is Italian: it developed in military language from “to gird, surround”, the enemy being hemmed in on every side, and passed around 1400 into French and in the 16th century into Spanish embestir (“to charge”).^[4][12][13] DELI sees three layers in the family: the feudal one, an early commercial one owed to the growth of capitalism in Italy, and a modern one of traffic, prepared by the nautical sense of running into something.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Ritmo Laurenziano of the end of the 12th century, in the feudal sense of granting a fief or a dignity:^[3][5] “neither Latin nor German nor Lombard nor French: I invest no better king than him, so fresh he is in goodness” (Né latino né tedesco né lombardo nè francesco / suo mellior re no ’nvestisco, tant’è di bontade fresco).^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the feudal sense Old Italian drew essere bene investito “to be well off” (before 1313, Cecco Angiolieri).^[3] The commercial sense, to put money into a business for a profit, is found in a letter of a Sienese merchant of 1262 (investire in draparia, in the cloth trade) and in Domenico Cavalca before 1342.^[3][14]

The sense “to attack, assail” is recorded in a Genoese document of 1435 and in Cristoforo Landino before 1498, “to run into with violence” in 1565, and the reciprocal investirsi, of ships colliding, in 1602.^[3] In the 20th century the verb came to be used for a vehicle running over a person or hitting another vehicle;^[3] investito, the victim of a road accident, is recorded in 1969 and investitore, the driver who causes it, in 1955.^[3]

The economic sense passed into English, where invest (1613) is a semantic calque of the Latin and Italian verbs, and into German investieren in the 19th century.^[14]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Ritmo Laurenziano uses the verb in its feudal sense.^[3]
• 1262 – A Sienese merchant writes of investing in the cloth trade.^[3][14]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses the commercial sense.^[3]
• 1363 – Investimento appears in the Italian translation of Marsilius of Padua.^[3]
• 1435 – The sense “to attack” appears in a Genoese document.^[3][14]
• 1565 – The sense “to run into violently” is recorded.^[3]
• 1613 – English invest takes the economic sense.^[14]
• 1969 – Investito “road accident victim” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To grant someone a fief, a title or a dignity, especially by a formal act: Il re lo investì del titolo di conte.^[5][7][15]
2. To entrust an authority officially with a task: Il tribunale è stato investito della questione.^[5][7][8]
3. To invest money or resources in something to obtain a profit; also used without an object: Ha investito l'eredità in buoni del tesoro.^[5][7][6]
4. To devote time, energy or feeling to something: In questo progetto ho investito anni di lavoro.^[5][15][16]
5. To strike with violence, to assail, also figuratively: Appena entrato, lo investirono di domande.^[5][15][6]
6. Of a vehicle, to hit another vehicle or run over a person: Un camion ha investito un motorino all'incrocio.^[5][8][1]
7. (military) To assault a fortified place.^[5]
8. (nautical) Intransitive, with essere: to run onto a rock or a shoal or collide with another vessel.^[15][1]

Word family

• investimento
• investitore
• investitura
• investito
• investibile
• reinvestire
• disinvestire

Related words

• veste
• vestire
• rivestire
• Latin vestis

Usage notes

The reflexive investirsi means to claim a title or power for oneself, and also to identify fully with a role or a feeling.^[6][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 8, 424
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2083
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli