Investigation

How to spell investigation

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce investigation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does investigation mean?

1. nounA formal or systematic process of examining the facts of something to discover the truth.

Investigation in a sentence

• The police opened an investigation into the missing funds.

• The safety board launched a full investigation after the crash.

Where does investigation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin investigatio, a noun built on the verb investigare, meaning 'to track down' or 'to search into'. That verb joined the prefix in-, meaning 'into', with vestigium, which literally meant a 'footprint' or 'trace' left on the ground, so the original image is of a hunter following tracks to find prey. From this earthy sense of tracing footprints, the meaning broadened to the careful searching out of facts and evidence. English took the word in through Old French and Latin during the 1400s, and it settled into its modern meaning of a formal inquiry. The same vestigium root survives in the English word 'vestige', meaning a small surviving trace of something now mostly gone, which is a useful reminder that the central spelling chunk is vestig.

How the word is built

• in- (into)
• vestig (track, trace, footprint)
• -ation (noun of action)