Reverse

rɪˈvɜrs

verb

to move backward or in an opposite direction; to turn around

The word 'reverse' comes from the Latin word 'reversus', which means 'turned back'. In addition to its literal meaning of going backward, it can also be used in various contexts such as reversing a decision or a process.

You face reverse entropy of the soul.

Stephen King

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)

‘Answer me, or I will reverse my judgement!’ Still Gollum did not answer.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Two Towers

Even if we were ordinary strangers, we would be of interest.” “Sufficient interest for a governor to come to us rather than the reverse?’ Channis shrugged: “We’ll have to meet that problem later.

Asimov, Isaac

Foundation 3 - Second Foundation

To know her from that document would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that.

Mark Twain

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse.

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely.

George R. R. Martin

A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace

Jesus wouldn't come and take dead people up to heaven if anyone was watching, Tom said (Nick reflected that Tom's Jesus was a kind of Santa Claus in reverse, taking dead people up the chimney instead of bringing presents down).

King, Stephen

The Stand

Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation, he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his wife.

Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist

He has also deduced that the process is likely to work in reverse; that is to say, he has realized that he might be able to access your thoughts and feelings in return —”“And he might try and make me do things?” asked Harry.

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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Gregory Maguire

Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister

On Mars, however, just the reverse has apparently been the case.

H. G. Wells

The War of the Worlds

But if it climb, with your assisting hands, The Trojan walls, and in the city stands; Then Troy shall Argos and Mycenae burn, And the reverse of fate on us return.’ “With such deceits he gain’d their easy hearts, Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.

Virgil

The Aeneid

and my feelings were the reverse of those intended.

Dick, Philip K.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

And our sympathy—do ye not understand what our reverse sympathy applies to, when it resists your sympathy as the worst of all pampering and enervation?—So it is sympathy against sympathy!—But to repeat it once more, there are higher problems than the problems of pleasure and pain and sympathy; and all systems of philosophy which deal only with these are naivetes.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

Man the braces!” Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod’s quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.

Herman Melville

Moby Dick

“I reverse the order.

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd:—for example, Numbers 12:3: “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were on the face of the earth.” If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are against them: if Moses was not the author, the books are without authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment.

Thomas Paine

The Age of Reason

Outwardly and in the eyes of the world, I am surrounded by kindness and affection; but the reverse is the case.

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

He had rather imagined that the denouement would take place in the château garden by moonlight, and in the most graceful and decorous manner; but it turned out exactly the reverse, for the matter was settled on the lake, at noonday, in a few blunt words.

Louisa May Alcott

Little Women

There are men who seem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse, the wrong side.

Victor Hugo

Les Misérables

It was like falling down a mountain in reverse.

Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune

I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

L. Bob Rife wanted to reverse-engineer the skills that Enki possessed; by analyzing Enki's me, he wanted to create his very own neurolinguistic hackers, who could write new me that would become the ground rules, the program, for the new society that Rife wants to create."

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash

The crux was it was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame paw, not that the cases were either identical or the reverse, though he had hurt his hand too, to Ontario Terrace, as he very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak.

James Joyce

Ulysses

Because why were we looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?

Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay

LXXXIV Remote from the fighting line, in Akaba, during this pause we saw the reverse of the shield, the corruption of our enthusiasm, which made the moral condition of the base unsatisfactory.

T. E. Lawrence

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom, It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet

She flaunted a reverse vanity that announced: “I am greater than the devices my failing senses require.” Bellonda was definitely irritated by Mother Superior.

Frank Herbert

Chapterhouse: Dune

But the case is exactly the reverse.

Charles Darwin

The Origin of Species

calamitous by birth: To-day, with power elate, in strength he blooms; The haughty creature on that power presumes: Anon from Heaven a sad reverse he feels: Untaught to bear, 'gainst Heaven the wretch rebels.

Homer

The Odyssey

You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely.

Martin, George, R. R.

A Dance With Dragons

Now, the manner of this business has been the reverse of simple.” The storm that had slackened for a little seemed to be swelling again, and there came heavy movements as of faint thunder.

G. K. Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown

“Put her in reverse.” “But the wheel’s off!” He hesitated.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Provided they have a few accomplishments, they are received in the best society; there are even ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain who fall in love with them, which subsequently furnishes them opportunities for making very good matches.” “But,” said the doctor, “I fear for him that down there—” “You are right,” interrupted the chemist; “that is the reverse of the medal.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

Accept me, and in me from these receive The smell of peace toward Mankind: let him live Before thee reconciled, at least his days Numbered, though sad; till death, his doom (which I To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse), To better life shall yield him, where with me All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss, Made one with me, as I with thee am one.” To whom the Father, without cloud, serene: “All thy request for Man, accepted Son, Obtain; all thy request was my decree.

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Don Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and said, “He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer.” “What!” said Don Quixote, “for being musicians and singers are people sent to the galleys too?” “Yes, sir,” answered the galley slave, “for there is nothing worse than singing under suffering.” “On the contrary, I have heard say,” said Don Quixote, “that he who sings scares away his woes.”232 “Here it is the reverse,” said the galley slave; “for he who sings once weeps all his life.” “I do not understand it,” said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said to him, “Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the torture and he confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a cattle-stealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years in the galleys, besides two hundred lashes that he has already had on the back; and he is always dejected and downcast because the other thieves that were left behind and that march here ill-treat, and snub, and jeer, and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough to say nay; for, say they, ‘nay’ has no more letters in it than ‘yea,’233 and a culprit is well off when life or death with him depends on his own tongue and not on that of witnesses or evidence; and to my thinking they are not very far out.” “And I think so too,” answered Don Quixote; then passing on to the third he asked him what he had asked the others, and the man answered very readily and unconcernedly, “I am going for five years to their ladyships the gurapas for the want of ten ducats.” “I will give twenty with pleasure to get you out of that trouble,” said Don Quixote.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote

Signing Washington Irving’s name to official documents was not much of a career, perhaps, but it was less monotonous than signing ‘Major Major Major.’ When Washington Irving did grow monotonous, he could reverse the order and sign Irving Washington until that grew monotonous.

Heller, Joseph

Catch-22

But the reverse of this is their interest as merchants.

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations