Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To turn inside out or upside down.
  • intransitive verb To reverse the position, order, or condition of: synonym: reverse.
  • intransitive verb To subject to inversion.
  • intransitive verb To be subjected to inversion.
  • noun Something inverted.
  • noun One who takes on the gender role of the opposite sex.
  • noun In the theory of Sigmund Freud, a homosexual person. No longer in scientific use.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In architecture, an inverted arch; specifically, the floor of the lock-chamber of a canal, which is usually in the form of an inverted arch, or the bottom of a sewer.
  • noun In telegraphy, an inverted or reversed insulator.
  • An abbreviation of Invertebrata;
  • of invertebrate.
  • To turn in an opposite direction; turn end for end, upside down, or inside out; place in a contrary order or position: as, to invert a cone or a sack; to invert the order of words.
  • To divert; turn into another channel; devote to another purpose.
  • Synonyms Overthrow, Subvert, etc. See overturn.
  • In chem., to convert (cane-sugar) into a mixture of glucose and fructose.
  • In music: Of an interval, to transpose the lower tone an octave higher, so that it falls (usually) above the higher tone.
  • Of a melody or theme, to take its intervals in order downward instead of upward, thus making a new melody, but one whose relation to the first is exact and intelligible.
  • Of a chord, to arrange its tones in any order in which the root is not in the bass.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb (Chem.) To undergo inversion, as sugar.
  • transitive verb To turn over; to put upside down; to upset; to place in a contrary order or direction; to reverse
  • transitive verb (Mus.) To change the position of; -- said of tones which form a chord, or parts which compose harmony.
  • transitive verb obsolete To divert; to convert to a wrong use.
  • transitive verb (Chem.) To convert; to reverse; to decompose by, or subject to, inversion. See Inversion, n., 10.
  • adjective (Chem.) Subjected to the process of inversion; inverted; converted.
  • adjective (Chem.) a variety of sugar, consisting of a mixture of dextrose and levulose, found naturally in fruits, and produced artificially by the inversion of cane sugar (sucrose); also, less properly, the grape sugar or dextrose obtained from starch. See Inversion, Dextrose, Levulose, and Sugar.
  • noun (Masonry) An inverted arch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To turn (something) upside down or inside out.
  • verb transitive, music To move (the root note of a chord) up or down an octave, resulting in a change in pitch.
  • noun archaic A homosexual man.
  • noun architecture An inverted arch (as in a sewer). *
  • noun civil engineering The lowest point inside a pipe at a certain point.
  • noun civil engineering An elevation of a pipe at a certain point along the pipe.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make an inversion (in a musical composition)
  • verb turn inside out or upside down
  • verb reverse the position, order, relation, or condition of

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin invertere : in-, in; see in– + vertere, to turn; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

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