investigation
noun
Simple meaning
The act of carefully looking into something to find facts
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnvuhstuhgayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnvɛstəˈɡeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of investigating; the process of inquiring into or following up; research, especially patient or thorough inquiry or examination
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The act of investigating; the process of inquiring into or following up; research, especially patient or thorough inquiry or examination
Used this way, investigation is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Careful and exacting
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The United States Army's principal law enforcement agency responsible for the conduct of criminal investigations for all levels of the Army anywhere in the world.
A federal law enforcement agency that is the principal investigative arm of the Department of Justice.
The investigation of criminal activities.
A defense laboratory of the Criminal Investigation Command.
A defense laboratory of the Criminal Investigation Command.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Keep learning “investigation” by choosing the kind of practice you need next.
- Practice sentence writingWrite sentences with vocabulary and get instant feedback.
- Practice in contextAnswer short vocabulary questions drawn from real situations.
- Review vocabularyTest your recall and strengthen words over time.
- Practice typingType vocabulary from meanings, examples and other prompts.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.