Revised as of
7 July 2023
This particular confusion was raised in a listserve I belong to, and it intrigued me. In a more corporate environment, one hears about being vested in term of one’s pension or holding stock in the company. When it comes to a wedding ceremony, the power vested in me seems to be an essential part of the celebration.
Using invested AND vested as verbs to convey being dressed with or in a vest was a curiosity, although I suppose one could more closely differentiate between the two even here using each word’s history, with invested being a more formal way of clothing someone in authority whereas vested is more literal with getting dressed.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
If you found this post on “Invested versus Vested” interesting, consider tweeting it to your friends. Subscribe to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.
| Invested | Vested |
|---|---|
E-ticker is klip game’s own work and is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. — When invested, you want to keep an eye on those investments. |
Lt Cmdr Jose Pimentel Leads Sailors in Prayer During a Catholic Mass is courtesy of the US Navy and is under the Public Domain Mark 1.0 license, via Picryl. — The priest is vested in his robes of office. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Morpheme: invest
Verb, intransitive 2 & transitive 1 Third person present verb: invests |
Morpheme: vest
Noun 1; Verb 2, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: vests Third person present verb: vests |
| More of a physical action and usually refers to an expenditure of money, resources, or time in an enterprise with the expectation of generating a profit
Verb, intransitive: Expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture 2 [Invest in; informal] Buy something whose usefulness will repay the cost Verb, transitive: [Invest someone/something with] Provide or endow someone or something with a particular quality or attribute Endow someone with a rank or office [Invest something in] Establish a right or power in [Archaic] Clothe or cover with a garment [Archaic] Surround a place in order to besiege or blockade it |
More of a concept . . .
Noun: [U.S. & Australian] A sleeveless, close-fitting waist-length garment worn over a shirt, typically having no collar and buttoning down the front 1 A garment worn on the upper part of the body for a particular purpose or activity [British] An undershirt, typically one without sleeves
Verb, intransitive: [Of a chorister or member of the clergy] Put on vestments Verb, transitive: [Usu. be vested with] Give someone the legal right to power, property, etc. [Poetic/literary] Dress someone |
| Examples: | |
| Verb, intransitive: Getting workers to invest in private pension funds. We want to invest in real estate. We decided to invest in a new car. Verb, transitive: Politicians who have invested so much time in the Constitution would be crestfallen. The passage of time has invested the words with an unintended humor. He stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Fort Pulaski was invested and captured. |
Noun: Businessmen wear three-piece pin-striped suits with vests and neckties. Janey likes to wear a running vest to hold her keys and emergency money. I can see where a bulletproof vest could come in handy. She stepped out in a striped vest and skinny jeans with strappy black heels. Kim looked chic in her pink jeans and white vest top. Verb, intransitive: These are the stock options that vest after the second year of employment. The company was vested with authority. Verb, transitive: With the power that has been vested in me . . . The socialists came to be vested with the power of legislation. The Speaker vested him with a rich purple robe. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: investable, investible Noun: investing, investment, investor, noninvestor Verb, transitive: overinvest, preinvest, reinvest |
Adjective: nonvested, unvested, vested, vestless, vestlike |
| History of the Word: | |
|
|
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources for Invested versus Vested
Apple Dictionary.com
The Free Dictionary: invest
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Man in Gray Vest by Pacian~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims) and under the GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0 licenses and Old Greek Money by Jon Eben Field (originally posted to Flickr as Greece-22) is under the CC BY 2.0 license are both via Wikimedia Commons.
