investments

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

   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
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.