Revert

How to spell revert

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce revert

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does revert mean?

1. verbTo return to a previous state, condition, habit, or topic.
2. verbIn law, for property or rights to pass back to a former owner or their heirs.

Revert in a sentence

• If the update causes problems, you can revert to the older version.

• Under the agreement, the land will revert to the family if the trust is dissolved.

• After the diet ended, he began to revert to his old eating habits.

• The lease states that ownership will revert to the council after fifty years.

Where does revert come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Revert comes from the Latin revertere, a compound of re-, meaning 'back', and vertere, meaning 'to turn'. The literal sense was therefore 'to turn back' or 'to return to where you began'. English took the word up in the 1300s through Old French revertir, at first for returning to a place or coming back to an earlier condition, and later for the legal idea of property passing back to a former owner. The same vertere root turns up across English in a whole family of words, including convert, divert, invert and reverse, which all involve some kind of turning. Remembering that shared 'vert' (turn) part is the easiest way to keep the spelling straight, since the word is simply 'turn back'.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• vert (to turn, from Latin vertere)