/in verr"zheuhn, -sheuhn/ , n.
1. an act or instance of inverting.
2. the state of being inverted.
3. anything that is inverted.
4. Rhet. reversal of the usual or natural order of words; anastrophe.
5. Gram. any change from a basic word order or syntactic sequence, as in the placement of a subject after an auxiliary verb in a question or after the verb in an exclamation, as "When will you go?" and "How beautiful is the rose!"
6. Anat. , Pathol. the turning inward of a part, as the foot.
7. Chem.
a. a hydrolysis of certain carbohydrates, as cane sugar, that results in a reversal of direction of the rotatory power of the carbohydrate solution, the plane of polarized light being bent from right to left or vice versa.
b. a reaction in which a starting material of one optical configuration forms a product of the opposite configuration.
8. Music.
a. the process or result of transposing the tones of an interval or chord so that the original bass becomes an upper voice.
b. (in counterpoint) the transposition of the upper voice part below the lower, and vice versa.
c. presentation of a melody in contrary motion to its original form.
9. Psychiatry. assumption of the sexual role of the opposite sex; homosexuality.
10. Genetics. a type of chromosomal aberration in which the position of a segment of the chromosome is changed in such a way that the linear order of the genes is reversed. Cf. chromosomal aberration .
11. Phonet. retroflexion (def. 3).
12. Also called atmospheric inversion, temperature inversion . Meteorol. a reversal in the normal temperature lapse rate, the temperature rising with increased elevation instead of falling.
13. Electricity. a converting of direct current into alternating current.
14. Math. the operation of forming the inverse of a point, curve, function, etc.
adj.
15. pertaining to or associated with inversion therapy or the apparatus used in it: inversion boots.
[ 1545-55; inversion- (s. of inversio ) a turning in. See INVERSE, -ION ]