Invert vs Backwards - What's the difference?
invert | backwards |
To turn (something) upside down or inside out; to place in a contrary order or direction.
* Shakespeare
* Cowper
(music) To move (the root note of a chord) up or down an octave, resulting in a change in pitch.
(chemistry) To undergo inversion, as sugar.
To divert; to convert to a wrong use.
(archaic) A homosexual man.
(architecture) An inverted arch (as in a sewer). *
The base of a tunnel on which the road or railway may be laid and used when construction is through unstable ground. It may be flat or form a continuous curve with the tunnel arch. invert (in'?vert) The floor or bottom of the internal cross section of a closed conduit, such as an aqueduct, tunnel, or drain - The term originally referred to the inverted arch used to form the bottom of a masonry?lined sewer or tunnel (Jackson, 1997) Wilson, W.E., Moore, J.E., (2003) Glossary of Hydrology, Berlin: Springer
(civil engineering) The lowest point inside a pipe at a certain point.
(civil engineering) An elevation of a pipe at a certain point along the pipe.
(chemistry) Subjected to the process of inversion; inverted; converted.
English heteronyms
Oriented toward the back.
Reversed.
(derogatory) Behind current trends or technology.
Clumsy, inept, or inefficient.
Toward the back.
In the opposite direction to usual.
In a manner such that the back precedes the front.
As adjectives the difference between invert and backwards
is that invert is (chemistry) subjected to the process of inversion; inverted; converted while backwards is oriented toward the back.As a verb invert
is to turn (something) upside down or inside out; to place in a contrary order or direction.As a noun invert
is (archaic) a homosexual man.As an adverb backwards is
toward the back.invert
English
Verb
(en verb)- to invert a cup, the order of words, rules of justice, etc.
- That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears, / As if these organs had deceptious functions.
- Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone, / Wanting its proper base to stand upon.
- (Knolles)
Derived terms
* invert sugar * inverted * invertibleSee also
* convertNoun
(en noun)Adjective
(-)- invert sugar
References
backwards
English
Alternative forms
* backwardAdjective
(en adjective)- The battleship had three backwards guns at the stern, in addition to the primary complement .
- The backwards lettering on emergency vehicles makes it possible to read in the rear-view mirror.
- Modern medicine regards the use of leeches as a backwards practice.
- He was a very backwards scholar, but he was a marvel on the football field.
Usage notes
* In senses 3 and 4, and often in American English, backward is preferred.Synonyms
* (oriented toward the back) * (reversed) mirror image, switched, back to front * (behind current trends or technology) crude, dated, obsolete, primitive * awkward, fumbling, incompetent, poorAdverb
(en adverb)- The cabinet toppled over backwards .
- Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards . —Søren Kierkegaard
- The clock did not work because the battery was inserted backwards .
- The tour guide walked backwards while droning on to the bored seniors.