investment
noun
Simple meaning
Money put into something in the hope of getting more back later.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnvehstmuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈvɛstmənt
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
finance
A placement of capital in expectation of deriving income or profit from its use or appreciation.
The act of investing; laying out money or capital in an enterprise with the expectation of profit
The act of investing, or state of being invested.
military
The act of surrounding, blocking up, or besieging by an armed force, or the state of being so surrounded.
A mixture of silica sand and plaster which, by surrounding a wax pattern, creates a negative mold of the form used for casting, among other metals, bronze.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A placement of capital in expectation of deriving income or profit from its use or appreciation.
Used this way, investment is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Grateful and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
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.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Someone who commits capital in order to gain financial returns.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Someone who advises others how to invest their money.
Someone who advises others how to invest their money.
A banker who deals chiefly in underwriting new securities.
A financial institution that sells shares to individuals and invests in securities issued by other companies.
A financial institution that sells shares to individuals and invests in securities issued by other companies.
Money that is invested with an expectation of profit.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Make an investment.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: placement of capital in expectation of deriving income
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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.