Etymologically
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inversion

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɪnˈvɜː.ʃən/[1]
  • US: /ɪnˈvɚ.ʒən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin inversiō (“reversal, transposition”),[2][3][4][5][6][7] a noun of action from inversus, the past participle of invertō (“to turn upside down, turn about”),[3][4][7][5] which is formed from in- and vertō (“to turn”).[2] In classical Latin the noun was used in rhetoric for the reversal of the order of words and for saying the opposite of what is meant, as in irony; several of its senses were modelled on Ancient Greek ἀναστροφή (anastrophḗ).[2] The OED compares Anglo-Norman inversion, used in medicine in the 13th century, and French inversion (from 1529), as well as Spanish inversión and Italian inversione.[2] Johnson gave the word as French and Latin.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rhetorical figure in which an opponent's argument is turned against him: 1532, in L. Cox's Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke; this sense was obsolete by the early 19th century.[2][5] The Oxford Dictionary of English likewise dates the word to the mid 16th century in this rhetorical sense.[9]

Semantic evolution

From the rhetorical term the word widened in 1546 to any reversal of direction, order or relationship,[2] which Etymonline dates to the 1550s as "act of inverting" and to the 1590s as "state of being inverted".[3] From 1583 it named the reversal of the usual order of words in a sentence,[2][5] and its use in grammar dates from 1842.[2] It then entered many technical fields: military drill (1627), mathematics (1645), music, where the notes of a chord are moved to another octave (1664), and chemistry, of the reversal of the optical rotation of sugar.[2][5] In late 19th-century psychology it meant homosexuality, short for sexual inversion (1895), and later identification with the opposite sex (1958);[3] the OED compares the earlier French phrase inversion du sens génital (1882) and its German model Verkehrung der Geschlechtsempfindung (1870).[2] The meteorological sense dates from 1902.[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a change of order or time, "so as that the last is first, and first last".[8]

Timeline

  • 1532 – rhetoric, turning an opponent's argument against him (now obsolete).[2]
  • 1546 – reversal or transposition of direction, order or relationship.[2] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1550s.[3]
  • 1583 – reversal of the normal order of words.[2]
  • 1627 – military, a drill movement turning a rank into a file.[2][5]
  • 1645 – mathematics, the reversal of a ratio.[2]
  • 1664 – music, the shifting of the notes of a chord into another octave.[2]
  • 1895 – psychology, homosexuality.[3]
  • 1902 – meteorology.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act of inverting, or the state of being inverted; a turning upside down or inside out.[10][7]
  2. A reversal of position, order, sequence or relationship: The new law brought an inversion of the old roles of landlord and tenant.[10][7][5]
  3. (rhetoric, grammar) The reversal of the normal order of words, as in "Gone are the days"; anastrophe.[10][5][2]
  4. (music) The rearrangement of the notes of a chord or interval, or the turning of a melody upside down, so that rising intervals fall and falling ones rise.[5][2]
  5. (mathematics) The reversal of a ratio; also a transformation of a figure about a fixed point, or the finding of a function from its transform.[5][2]
  6. (chemistry) The conversion of sucrose by hydrolysis into glucose and fructose, which reverses the direction of optical rotation.[10][5]
  7. (medicine) The turning of an organ partly or wholly inside out.[7]
  8. (geology) A folding back of rock strata upon themselves, so that their order seems reversed.[7]
  9. (obsolete, 1532–1808) In rhetoric, the turning of an opponent's argument against him.[2][5]

Word family

  • inversion therapy
  • population inversion
  • temperature inversion

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins