invert

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin invertō (“to turn upside down or inside out, reverse, transpose”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from in- (“in, on”) and vertō (“to turn”),^[2][3][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[7][3] Etymonline allows a source in French invertir and Barnhart a partial influence of the same verb,^[7][8] but the OED first records the French verb in 1537, after the English one.^[2] The noun comes from the verb,^[2][8][6] and the adjective partly from the verb and partly from a shortening of inverted.^[2] The noun meaning a sugar shortens invert sugar, and the noun meaning an animal shortens invertebrate.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To reverse or transpose things or their order: 1533, in Thomas More's Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance.^[2][8] Etymonline likewise has the 1530s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb was already figurative, covering perverting and using words ironically,^[7][2] and the English word began with order and direction rather than with position: changing a quality into its opposite is recorded from about 1536, and turning something upside down, now a main sense, only in the late 16th century.^[2][6] Other early uses died out, such as turning an argument back against the one who made it (1584–1730) and diverting something to another use, which Johnson (1755) illustrated from Knolles, saying that convert or intervert was then the usual word.^[2][6][9] Mathematics took the word up in 1658, and music and chemistry in the mid 19th century.^[2][6] The noun began in engineering, for an inverted arch in the floor of a tunnel or sewer, recorded from 1827 in the OED and 1838 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.^[2][8][4] A psychological use, modelled on inversion, followed in 1892, in a letter by Havelock Ellis.^[2] Collins now calls it old-fashioned.^[10] Stamp collectors have used the noun since 1902, and it spread to skateboarding by 1979.^[2]

Timeline

• 1533 – to reverse or transpose.^[2][8]
• c. 1536 – to change into the opposite.^[2]
• 1584 – to turn an argument back against the person who made it (obsolete by 1730).^[2]
• 1609 – to turn inwards.^[2]
• 1627 – to form a rank of troops into files.^[2]
• 1658 – to transform a ratio by interchanging its terms.^[2]
• 1661 – adjective, inverted.^[2]
• 1827 – noun, an inverted arch in a tunnel or sewer.^[2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the noun to 1838.^[8][4]
• 1864 – adjective, of sucrose that has been hydrolysed.^[2]
• 1892 – noun, a person regarded as sexually inverted.^[2]
• 1902 – noun, a postage stamp printed with its design upside down.^[2]
• 1910 – noun, invert sugar.^[2]
• 1965 – noun, an invertebrate.^[2]
• 1979 – noun, an aerial manoeuvre in skateboarding.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To turn upside down or inside out: She inverted the jar over the sink.^[10][4][6]
2. To reverse in position, order, effect or relationship.^[10][4][2]
3. To turn inwards, as the foot.^[4][2]
4. (music) To change the relative position of the notes of an interval or chord, or reverse the direction of a phrase.^[6]
5. (mathematics) To find the inverse of.^[2][6]
6. (chemistry) To break up sucrose into dextrose and laevulose.^[6]
7. (logic) To form the inverse of a proposition.^[10][6]
8. (phonetics) To turn the tip of the tongue up and back, or pronounce a sound in that way.^[10]
9. (obsolete, 1584–1730) To turn an argument back against the person who made it.^[2][6]
10. (obsolete) To divert to another use.^[6][9]

Noun

1. (civil engineering) An inverted arch, as at the bottom of a tunnel or sewer.^[4][2][6]
2. The lowest point on the inside of a pipe, drain or channel.^[4][2]
3. A postage stamp with all or part of its design printed upside down.^[4][2]
4. (old-fashioned) A homosexual person, or one who adopts the role of another gender.^[10][4][2]
5. Invert sugar.^[2][6]
6. An invertebrate, chiefly in the plural.^[2]
7. An aerial manoeuvre in which a skateboarder or snowboarder turns upside down.^[2]

Adjective

1. Inverted.^[2][6]
2. (chemistry) Of sucrose: broken down into glucose and fructose.^[4][2]

Word family

• invertible
• invertibility
• invertase
• invertor
• invert sugar

Related words

• inversion
• inverse
• reverse
• pervert
• verse
• version
• vertex

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 u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ 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.
10. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins