Other forms: investigations
An investigation is an official effort to find out the facts. Launch an investigation, under investigation, a police investigation.
Announcing one is a way of buying time as well as of finding things out, which is why the word appears so often in statements about scandals. Under investigation says nothing about guilt. Note investigate; and that the Latin means to track, from vestigium, a footprint — the same root as vestige.
1nouninvestigationAn official effort to find out the facts.
“The police have started an investigation into the fire.”
investigation is an official enquiry.
Latin investigatio comes from investigare, to track, from vestigium, a footprint. Vestige comes from the same trace.
Middle English
investigacioun
English, today
investigation
From Middle English investigacioun. From Middle English investigacioun, from Old French investigacion, from Latin investigatio. Morphologically investigate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA