Other forms: invitations
An invitation is a message asking somebody to come to something — a party, a wedding, a meeting. Send an invitation, accept an invitation, an invitation to the launch.
The card is an invitation, and so is a spoken one, and so is an email. The short informal noun is an invite, which is common in speech and still faintly disapproved of in writing. Note the pattern: an invitation to an event, and an invitation to do something. There is a figurative use worth having — leaving the door unlocked is an invitation to trouble — where an invitation means something that makes an unwanted outcome likely.
1nouninvitationA written or spoken request asking somebody to come to an event.
“The invitation arrived three weeks late.”
2nounrequestA request to do something.
“It was an invitation to comment, not an instruction.”
3noununwantedSomething that makes an unwanted outcome likely.
“Leaving it on the seat is an invitation to a thief.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
invitation is a request to attend.
Also accepted in games: invite
Latin invitare meant to invite or entertain, and its origin beyond that is uncertain. What is certain is the family it built in English: invite, invitation, and the adjective inviting, which describes anything that makes you want to come closer.
Latin
invītātio
Middle English
invitacioun
English, today
invitation
From Middle English invitacioun, ynvytacioun, from Latin invītātio, reinforced by Middle French invitation. by surface analysis, invite + -ation. Displaced native lathinge from laþung (see dialectal lathing).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA