invest

What it means

1. To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in.

   We'd like to thank all the contributors who have invested countless hours into this event.

   2 more examples

   The authors predicted that when believers were deeply invested in a world view that had social support, believers would maintain their beliefs even when actual events disproved their worldview.

   2025 November 4, Thomas Kelly, “Debunking “When Prophecy Fails””, in Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, volume 62, number 1, →DOI, →ISSN, page 1

   We did not spend. We invested. [CEO Jeff Housenbold: He's learning!] I invest. Yes, I invested. I invested in a city for the contestants.

   2025 December 3, NY Times DealBook Summit, 29:21, in MrBeast on Cracking the Attention Economy, spoken by Jimmy Donaldson

2. datedtransitiveTo clothe or wrap (with garments).

   He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck.

   1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

3. intransitiveobsoleteTo put on (clothing).

   Cannot find one this girdle to invest!

   1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book 4, canto 5, verse 18

   Synonyms: beclothe

In a sentence

We'd like to thank all the contributors who have invested countless hours into this event.

Where it comes from

1. Italianinvestire
2. Latininvestio“to clothe, cover”
3. Medieval Latininvestire
4. Middle Frenchinvestir
5. Englishinvest

Borrowed from Middle French investir or Medieval Latin investire, from Latin investio (“to clothe, cover”), from in- (“in, on”) + vestio (“to clothe, dress”), from vestis (“clothing”); see vest. The sense “to spend money etc.” probably via Italian investire, of the same root.