Definitions

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

  • adjective Facing or turned toward the observer.
  • adjective Serving as a counterpart or complement.
  • noun The side of a coin, medal, or badge that bears the principal stamp or design.
  • noun The more conspicuous of two possible alternatives, cases, or sides.
  • noun Logic The counterpart of a proposition obtained by exchanging the affirmative for the negative quality of the whole proposition and then negating the predicate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Specifically, in logic, the contranominal of the inverse of a proposition.
  • Turned toward (one); facing: opposed to reverse, and applied in numismatics to that side of a coin or medal which bears the head or more important inscription or device.
  • In botany, having the base narrower than the top, as a leaf.
  • noun In numismatics, the face or principal side of a coin or medal, as distinguished from the other side, called the reverse. See numismatics, and cuts under maravedi, medallion, and merk.
  • noun Hence A second aspect of the same fact; a correlative proposition identically implying another.

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

  • noun The face of a coin which has the principal image or inscription upon it; -- the other side being the reverse.
  • noun Anything necessarily involved in, or answering to, another; the more apparent or conspicuous of two possible sides, or of two corresponding things.
  • adjective Having the base, or end next the attachment, narrower than the top, as a leaf.

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

  • adjective Turned or facing toward the observer.
  • adjective Corresponding; complementary.
  • noun The heads side of a coin, or the side of a medal or badge that has the principal design.
  • noun logic The double negative of a statement e.g. All men are mortal => No man is immortal

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

  • noun the more conspicuous of two alternatives or cases or sides
  • noun the side of a coin or medal bearing the principal stamp or design

Etymologies

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

[Latin obversus, past participle of obvertere, to turn toward; see obvert.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin.

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