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inverto

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪnˈwɛr.toː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [iɱˈvɛr.to][1]

Forms

invertō (present infinitive invertere, perfect active invertī, supine inversum); third conjugation[1] An older spelling is invortō.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + vertō (“to turn”).[2][1][3] vertō goes back to Proto-Italic *wertō and Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL dates it from Terence.[3] Terence has words turned to their opposite meaning.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It is to turn upside down or inside out: Cicero has a ring turned round, and ⟨manus inversa⟩ is the back of the hand.[2] Virgil uses it of bulls turning the soil, and Horace of a wind that overturns the sea.[2] Figuratively it is to turn a thing into its opposite: Horace writes that we pervert the virtues themselves, and Cicero of reversing an order.[2] It is also to change into something else, and Tacitus uses it of rephrasing a text.[2] Church Latin glosses it to turn about, turn over, invert.[5] English inverse comes from its past participle, from the mid-15th century, and invert from the verb, from the 1530s, perhaps through French.[6]

Timeline

  • 190–159 BC – Terence of words used in the opposite sense.[2][3][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a ring turned round and of a reversed order.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of turning the soil.[2][4]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus of rephrasing a text.[2][4]
  • mid-15th century – English inverse is formed from its past participle.[6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To turn upside down or inside out, invert; to turn over the soil; to upset, overturn.[2][7][1][5]
  2. To turn into the opposite, pervert; to reverse an order; of words, to use them ironically in the opposite sense.[2][7][1]
  3. To change, alter; to paraphrase, translate.[2][1]

Word family

  • inversiō
  • inversor
  • inversūra
  • vertō
  • English invert
  • English inverse

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press