investment

Noun

investment (countable and uncountable, plural investments)

1. The act of investing, or state of being invested.
   • Giving your children a good education is a wise long-term investment.
2. A placement of capital in expectation of deriving income or profit from its use or appreciation.
   • An investment in ink, paper, and steel pens.1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC
   • Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe.[…]The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18

   Antonyms:

   divestment

3. (obsolete) A vestment.
   • Whose white investments figure innocence.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
4. The act of surrounding, blocking up, or besieging by an armed force, or the state of being so surrounded.
   • the investment of the fort1875, John Howard Hinton, History of the United States of America, from the First Settlement
   • In 1858, the Governor of Kuangsi applied for his services, but the Viceroy Tsêng Kuo-fan, under whom he had served for a number of years and who recognised his value, declined to part with him. In 1860 he assisted in the defeat of the rebel reinforcements at the Hsiao-ch‘ih post station and took...1890 May 16 [1890 April 17], “Honours to a Deceased Military Officer.”, in The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette, volume XLIV, number 1189, Shanghai, →OCLC, page 594, column 3
5. 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.