Inversion

How to spell inversion

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce inversion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inversion mean?

1. nounThe act of turning something upside down or reversing its normal order, position, or relationship.

Inversion in a sentence

• The inversion of the usual seating plan confused several guests.

• A temperature inversion trapped the smog over the city for days.

Where does inversion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin inversio, a noun built on the verb invertere, which combined in- ('in' or, by extension, 'reversal') with vertere meaning 'to turn'. The literal sense was therefore 'a turning about' or 'a turning upside down'. It passed into English in the late 1500s, at first in rhetoric for the reversal of normal word order, and soon spread to mathematics, music, chemistry and meteorology, each using it for some kind of reversal or flipping of the usual arrangement. The same vertere root that means 'turn' also gives English everyday relatives such as 'convert', 'reverse' and 'divert', so recognising that family helps fix the spelling. The trap for writers is the ending: like 'conversion' and 'version', it takes the -sion spelling rather than -tion, because the root already ends in the 's' of vers.

How the word is built

• in- (reversal/into)
• vers (turn, from Latin vertere)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)