Verb

To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something.

We invited our friends round for dinner.

To request formally.

I invite you all to be seated.

To encourage.

I always invite criticism of my definitions.

Wearing that skimpy dress, you are bound to invite attention.

* 1902 , Roosevelt,

The refusal to maintain such a navy would invite trouble, and if trouble came would insure disaster.

To allure; to draw to; to tempt to come; to induce by pleasure or hope; to attract.

* Milton

to inveigle and invite the unwary sense

* Dryden

shady groves, that easy sleep invite

* Cowper

There no delusive hope invites despair.

Verb

(en verb)

To look for (mentally); to look forward to, as to something that is believed to be about to happen or come; to have a previous apprehension of, whether of good or evil; to look for with some confidence; to anticipate; -- often followed by an infinitive, sometimes by a clause (with, or without, that).

*, chapter=13

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“[…] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.}}

To consider obligatory or required.

To consider reasonably due.

To be pregnant, to consider a baby due.

(obsolete) To wait for; to await.

* (rfdate) (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616):

Let's in, and there expect their coming.

*1825 , (Walter Scott), , A. and C. Black (1868), 24-25:

The knight fixed his eyes on the opening with breathless anxiety, and continuing to kneel in the attitude of devotion which the place and scene required, expected the consequence of these preparations.

(obsolete) To wait; to stay.

(Sandys)