involve
Americanverb (used with object)
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involves,
present (3rd person singular)
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involved,
past participle, past
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involving
present participle
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to include as a necessary circumstance, condition, or consequence; imply; entail.
This job involves long hours and hard work.
- Synonyms:
- demand, require, necessitate
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to engage or employ.
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to affect, as something within the scope of operation.
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to include, contain, or comprehend within itself or its scope.
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to bring into an intricate or complicated form or condition.
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to bring into difficulties (usually followed bywith ).
The investigation discovered a plot to involve one nation in a war with another.
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to cause to be troublesomely associated or concerned, as in something embarrassing or unfavorable.
Don't involve me in your quarrel!
- Antonyms:
- extricate
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to combine inextricably (usually followed bywith ).
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to implicate, as in guilt or crime, or in any matter or affair.
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to engage the interests or emotions or commitment of.
The professor involved many students in the disarmament movement.
Her husband became involved with another woman.
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to preoccupy or absorb fully (usually used passively or reflexively).
You are much too involved with the problem to see it clearly.
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to envelop or enfold, as if with a wrapping.
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to swallow up, engulf, or overwhelm.
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Archaic. to roll, surround, or shroud, as in a wrapping.
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to roll up on itself; wind spirally; coil; wreathe.
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verb
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to include or contain as a necessary part
the task involves hard work
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to have an effect on; spread to
the investigation involved many innocent people
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(often passive; usually foll by in or with) to concern or associate significantly
many people were involved in the crime
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(often passive) to make complicated; tangle
the situation was further involved by her disappearance
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rare to wrap or surround
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obsolete maths to raise to a specified power
Synonym Usage
Involve, entangle, implicate imply getting a person connected or bound up with something from which it is difficult to be freed. To involve is to bring more or less deeply into something, especially of a complicated, embarrassing, or troublesome nature: I'd rather not to involve someone else in my debt. To entangle (usually passive or reflexive) is to involve so deeply in a tangle as to confuse and make helpless: The candidate tended to entangle himself in a mass of contradictory statements. To implicate is to connect a person with something discreditable or wrong: She was implicated in a plot to assassinate the governor.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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involvementnoun
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involvernoun
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interinvolveverb (used with object)
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overinvolveverb (used with object)
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preinvolveverb (used with object)
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reinvolveverb (used with object)
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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involvesimple
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involvessimple
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have involvedperfect
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has involvedperfect
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am involvingprogressive
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are involvingprogressive
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is involvingprogressive
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have been involvingperfect progressive
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has been involvingperfect progressive
Past
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involvedsimple
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had involvedperfect
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was involvingprogressive
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were involvingprogressive
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had been involvingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of involve
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English involven, from Latin involvere “to roll in or up,” equivalent to in- in- 2 + volvere “to roll”; see revolve
Explanation
To involve means to connect. When you get involved in the Spanish Club, you attend meetings and events. If doing math well is involved in understanding advanced chemistry, that means it's a necessary part of it. When someone is very involved, it means they are engaged or connected to a lot of activities. When someone is self-involved, all they connect with is him or herself. If getting ice cream involves walking a mile to the ice cream shop, the exercise offsets the indulgence. When no exercise is involved, it's less healthy.
Vocabulary lists containing involve
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But there’s also a recognition here that the way through that inflection point will involve some inconvenient alliances in the face of powerful business threats.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
More than 80% of ischemic optic neuropathy cases are estimated to involve the non-arteritic anterior form of the condition.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
Nathan Hochman said last week there is no evidence the firm ever arranged a surrogacy that didn’t involve Xuan and Zhang.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
There are also ways to save on the venue that don’t involve getting married in another state.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
What could we do that didn’t involve taking the dead man with us?
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Other symptoms include mild dementia that involves short-term memory loss, a lack of interest in daily activities and difficulty completing routine tasks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
There’s also the 5:2 diet, which involves eating normally five days out of the week, and consuming just 25% of your normal caloric intake the other two days.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
One potential application involves speech prosthetics, technologies designed to help people communicate when injuries or neurological conditions have impaired their ability to speak.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
Aldaron avoids businesses whose strategy involves laying people off, Mendez said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
Since the first stage in unconscious domestication involves gathering seeds to eat, how on earth did domestication of wild almonds ever reach that first stage?
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
“Once the studio gets involved, they start thinking about dollars, which they got to make money, but they prioritize the dollars,” Rodriguez says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Most players involved were forced to acknowledge the whole story had been nonsense.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
Recent action for bonds issued by CoreWeave has raised an alarm for investors involved in the artificial-intelligence build-out trade.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Renaker has been involved in a long-running legal battle over £140m worth of loans made to the developer through the GMCA's fund.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
It was a decision that wound up costing Morgan Stanley nearly $6 billion, and yet Morgan Stanley’s CEO, John Mack, never got involved.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Bass has also vowed to make a priority of addressing police shootings of civilians, particularly those involving people experiencing mental health crises.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
But not until Wednesday did the offer appear to finally have been taken up, after talks involving disaster management officials on both sides, Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
Wilechansky became interested in the connection partly because of evidence involving night shift workers.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
The tools identify 10 to 12 high-potential opportunities a week involving dormant assets that it can convert into cash, up from one to two previously, said Chief Executive Eric Linn.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
“I’m too afraid of involving you in something far bigger than yourself, that you didn’t even choose.”
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
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