Conversely

How to spell conversely

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce conversely

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conversely mean?

1. adverbIntroducing a statement that presents the opposite or reverse of what has just been said.

Conversely in a sentence

• Raising prices may deter buyers; conversely, lowering them can boost sales.

• Some staff prefer quiet offices, while others, conversely, work better with background noise.

Where does conversely come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb convertere, meaning 'to turn around' or 'to turn about completely', built from the prefix con- (an intensive here) and vertere, which literally meant 'to turn'. The past participle conversus gave rise to the adjective converse, meaning a thing turned the opposite way round, and English added the native adverb ending -ly to form 'conversely', meaning 'when looked at from the opposite direction'. The same vertere root spins quietly inside a huge family of English words, including 'reverse', 'divert', 'version', and 'controversy', all of which involve some kind of turning. The logical and mathematical sense of 'converse', a statement with its parts turned around, was firmly established by the 1500s and 1600s, and 'conversely' followed as the natural way to signal that the opposite case now applies. The spelling trap is that single -s-; because the root is vers, not 'verse' the poetry word, writers should remember the turning sense of versus rather than rhyme.

How the word is built

• con- (together/with, intensive)
• vers (root vertere: to turn)
• -ely (adverb suffix)