Other forms: invited, invites, inviting
To invite is to ask somebody to come to something. Invite friends round, invite her to the wedding, we were not invited.
The pattern is invite somebody to something, or invite somebody to do something. Invite somebody for a meal is also ordinary. As a noun, an invite is the informal version of an invitation, and it is common in speech and still slightly frowned on in writing. Note the second sense, meaning to make something likely: that invites trouble, an invitation to disaster. And inviting as an adjective means attractive and welcoming — an inviting smell from the kitchen.
1verbinviteTo ask somebody to come to an event or a place.
“They invited about sixty people and ninety came.”
2verbformallyTo ask for something formally.
“The council invited comments on the plan.”
3verbbadTo make something bad more likely.
“Leaving it unlocked is inviting trouble.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
invite is a way of asking somebody to come.
Latin invitare meant to invite or entertain, and its deeper origin is uncertain. What is certain is that English has never needed another word for it: invite and its noun cover everything from a wedding to a meeting request.
Latin
invītō
Middle French
inviter
English, today
invite
From Middle French inviter, from Latin invītō. Displaced native lathe.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA