inversión

Forms

inversión f (plural inversiones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin inversiō (“inversion, transposition”), from invertō (“to turn upside down, invert”) with the suffix -tiō.^[2][1][3][4] Corominas lists it, with invertir and inverso, among the learned words of the family of verter.^[5][6] The Latin verb is formed with in- and vertō (“to turn”).^[7]

According to Bénaben, Spanish reinterpreted the prefix of the verb as “into”, and so the verb came to mean “to put money into a business”, the source of the noun's sense “investment”.^[7] Segura Munguía lists Italian inversione, French inversion and Basque inbertsio beside the Spanish word.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Latin inversiō was a term of rhetoric: a reversal of word order, irony, and Quintilian's translation of Greek allegoria.^[3][9] The first Spanish record the BDELC accepts, Fernando de Herrera's commentary on Garcilaso (1580), has the same sense: allegory, como traduce Quintiliano, inversión.^[6][10] The CDH has one earlier hit, in the records of the Madrid town council of 1502–1515, for the use of money raised.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century the word was still mainly rhetorical: Jiménez Patón used it for the figure the Greeks called antimetabole, and Gracián for the transposition of a word read backwards.^[10] In 1734 the Diccionario de Autoridades defined it more widely as a change in the order of things.^[11] The sense of laying out money appears in the records of the Americas from 1779, in Nueva Vizcaya (Mexico), for the income, spending and balance of public funds.^[12] Alemany (1917) added grammatical, mathematical, military and musical senses.^[13] The Academy's dictionaries later added “homosexuality” and a genetic sense.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1580 – Fernando de Herrera's Comentarios a Garcilaso uses it for allegory, after Quintilian.^[10][6]
• 1604–1621 – Jiménez Patón's Elocuencia española en arte applies it to a figure of speech.^[10]
• 1642–1648 – Gracián's Agudeza y arte de ingenio uses it for reading a word backwards.^[10]
• 1779 – the first record from the Americas, in Nueva Vizcaya, for the use of public funds.^[12]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros records the rhetorical figure.^[15]
• 1917 – Alemany lists the senses in grammar, mathematics and music.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The action and effect of inverting: an inversion, a reversal of order, position or direction: la inversión del sujeto y el verbo.^[2][1][16]
2. An investment: the placing of money, time or effort in something to obtain a return; the money invested.^[1][14][16]
3. (dated) Homosexuality.^[2][14]
4. (biology) A mutation in which a stretch of DNA is placed in the reverse order.^[2]
5. (music) The placing of the notes of a chord in a position other than the normal one, or the turning of a phrase so that its intervals run the opposite way.^[2]

Word family

• inversionista

Related words

• invertir
• inverso
• verter
• Latin inversiō

Usage notes

Inversión meteorológica is a temperature inversion, a layer of warm air that makes the temperature rise with height and can trap pollution.^[2] Common phrases of finance are fondo de inversión and banco de inversiones.^[1][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. inversión
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. inversio
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. inversión
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 791
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verter
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. invertir
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 395
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. inversio
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. inversión
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4
12. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. inversión
13. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 965
14. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. inversión
15. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 364
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. inversión