Inverse

How to spell inverse

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce inverse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inverse mean?

1. adjectiveOpposite in order, direction, or effect; reversed.
2. nounThe opposite or reverse of something; in mathematics, a value or operation that reverses another.

Inverse in a sentence

• adjective

  The study found an inverse relationship between exercise and stress.

• noun

  Subtraction is the inverse of addition.

• adjective

  The two variables move in inverse proportion to each other.

• noun

  The answer is simply the inverse of the figure we calculated earlier.

Where does inverse come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin inversus, the past participle of invertere, a verb that literally meant 'to turn upside down' or 'to turn inside out'. That verb was built from the prefix in-, meaning 'in' or 'into', and vertere, meaning 'to turn', a root that is astonishingly productive in English. The same vertere lies behind 'convert', 'reverse', 'divert', and 'version', all of which carry a sense of turning. English adopted 'inverse' in the late 1400s and 1500s, first in the general sense of 'reversed in position or order', and it later became a precise term in mathematics for a quantity or relation that reverses another. The spelling keeps the Latin vers cleanly intact, so remembering the 'turn' root (as in 'reverse') is a reliable guide to writing it.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• vers (turn, from Latin vertere)
• -e