Invitation

How to spell invitation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce invitation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does invitation mean?

1. nounA spoken or written request asking someone to attend an event or take part in something.

Invitation in a sentence

• The wedding invitation arrived in the post two months before the date.

• She declined the invitation to the conference because of a clash in her diary.

Where does invitation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travels from the Latin invitare, a verb meaning 'to invite, to summon, or to entertain a guest'. From that verb Latin formed the noun invitatio, describing the act of asking someone to come; the underlying sense was one of welcoming or offering hospitality. English picked up the word in the 1400s, partly through Old French invitation, and used it for both the act of inviting and the written request that conveys it. The double-t in invitare survives as the single t plus the -ation ending that produces the familiar spelling, and the same Latin root sits inside the everyday verb 'invite' and the rarer 'vie' is unrelated, so keep the link to 'invite' in mind. The chief spelling trap is hearing the final unstressed syllable and the -ation ending, both of which sound softer than they look.

How the word is built

• in- (toward)
• vit (from Latin invitare: to invite)
• -ation (noun of action)