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Meaning of inversion | Babel Free

Noun CEFR C2 Specialized
ɪnˈvɚ.ʒən

Definitions

  1. The action of inverting.
    countable, uncountable
  2. investment
  3. The act of being in an inverted state; being upside down, inside out, or in a reverse sequence.
    countable, uncountable
  4. The reversal of an interval; the move of one pitch in an interval up or down an octave.
    countable, uncountable
  5. The position of a chord which has a note other than the root as its bass note.
    countable, uncountable
  6. The flipping of a melody or contrapuntal line so that high notes become low and vice versa; the reversal of a pitch contour.
    countable, uncountable
  7. A segment of DNA in the context of a chromosome that is reversed in orientation relative to a reference karyotype or genome.
    countable, uncountable
  8. A situation where air temperature increases with altitude (the ground being colder than the surrounding air).
    countable, uncountable
  9. A section of a roller coaster where passengers are temporarily turned upside down.
    countable, uncountable
  10. Deviation from standard word order, as for example by putting the predicate before the subject. It takes place in questions with auxiliary verbs; in normal, affirmative clauses beginning with a negative particle, for the purpose of emphasis; and in other rhetorical devices or unusual situations.
    countable, uncountable
  11. An operation on a group, analogous to negation.
    countable, uncountable
  12. Homosexuality, particularly in early psychoanalysis.
    countable, obsolete, uncountable
  13. The catalytic action of invertase.
    countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Question formation involves the phenomenon commonly known as subject-auxiliary inversion, a change in word order in which the auxiliary moves in front of the subject.”
“We can seldom, therefore, congratulate ourselves on the success of any "cure" of inversion.”
“My father, León Fuertes, was a fag three years; […] He put on all the trappings of inversion: the twittered mouthings, the hyper-feminine moues, the languid mincings.”

CEFR level

C2
Mastery
This word is part of the CEFR C2 vocabulary — mastery level.
See all C2 English words →

See also

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