inversion

noun inversions

1. countable, uncountable The action of inverting.
2. countable, uncountable The act of being in an inverted state; being upside down, inside out, or in a reverse sequence.
3. countable, uncountable The reversal of an interval; the move of one pitch in an interval up or down an octave.
4. countable, uncountable The position of a chord which has a note other than the root as its bass note.
5. countable, uncountable The flipping of a melody or contrapuntal line so that high notes become low and vice versa; the reversal of a pitch contour.
6. countable, uncountable A segment of DNA in the context of a chromosome that is reversed in orientation relative to a reference karyotype or genome.
7. countable, uncountable A situation where air temperature increases with altitude (the ground being colder than the surrounding air).

   Similar: temperature inversion

8. countable, uncountable A section of a roller coaster where passengers are temporarily turned upside down.
9. countable, uncountable 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. 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.

   Similar: anastrophe, hyperbaton

10. countable, uncountable An operation on a group, analogous to negation.
11. countable, obsolete, uncountable Homosexuality, particularly in early psychoanalysis. We can seldom, therefore, congratulate ourselves on the success of any "cure" of inversion.
12. countable, uncountable The catalytic action of invertase.