Adversity

How to spell adversity

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce adversity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adversity mean?

1. nounA difficult or unfortunate situation; hardship or misfortune.

Adversity in a sentence

• The company faced real adversity during the recession yet kept all its staff.

• She drew on years of training to stay calm in the face of adversity.

Where does adversity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Adversity comes from the Latin adversitas, meaning 'opposition' or 'misfortune', which was built on the adjective adversus, literally 'turned against' or 'facing you'. That adjective was the past participle of advertere, formed from ad 'toward' and vertere 'to turn', so the original picture is of something turned around to confront you. English took the word in the 1200s through Old French aversite, and it has always carried the sense of hardship or hostile circumstance that stands in your way. The same vertere root turns up in a whole family of familiar words, including convert, reverse, and adverse, which is why the spelling keeps that telltale 'vers' in the middle. Remembering that adverse and adversity share one root helps fix the single 'd' and the 'vers' spelling.

How the word is built

• ad- (toward, against)
• vers (to turn, from Latin vertere)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)