reversaln.
/rᵻˈvəːsl/, U.S. /rəˈvərs(ə)l/, /riˈvərs(ə)l/ 1. Law. Annulment of a judgment, sentence, or decree, esp. one made by a lower court or authority; an instance of this. Also in figurative context.
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society > law > rule of law > illegality > [noun] > legal invalidity or faultiness > annulment or abrogation
reversing?a1425
repealing1431
abatementc1436
cancellingc1440
annullation1449
defeasance1456
voidance1488
reversal1489
reduction1496
repeal1503
extinguishment1528
disannulling1533
abrogation1535
obrogation1535
unplacing1554
nullity1555
reversement1572
reclaim1604
disaffirmancea1626
avoidance1628
rescinding1638
cassating1647
vacating1648
voiding1649
defease1650
annulment1651
unlawing1651
defeat1657
vacuating1684
peremption1726
invalidation1771
rescindment1783
supersession1790
disaffirmation1827
disenactment1859
discharge1892
1489–90 Rolls of Parl.: Henry VII (Electronic ed.) Parl. Jan. 1489 §4. m. 2 The acte of restitucion or reversall made in the said parliament.
1504 Rolls of Parl.: Henry VII (Electronic ed.) Parl. Jan. 1504 §5. m. 5 Rehersyng the seid reversall, repelle, adnullacion and avoydaunce of this seid acte.
1562 Act 5 Eliz. c. 9 §1 Upon every suche Reversall, the parties greeved to recover his or their Damages.
1622 F. Bacon Hist. Raigne Henry VII 12 The king likewise in the Reuersall of the Attainders of his Partakers..had his will.
1640 in J. Rushworth Hist. Coll.: Third Pt. (1692) I. 57 An Act for Reversal of a Decree made in Chancery.
1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. III. 284 Which reversal may be had by the defendant's appearing personally in court.
1797 Monthly Mag. 3 552/2 The effect of the reversal of an outlawry in a civil action..has been before mentioned.
1818 W. Cruise Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. (ed. 2) II. 328 It seems that the reversal of a fine by act of parliament will restore a contingent remainder destroyed by that fine.
1869 T. H. Huxley in Scientific Opinion 21 Apr. 464/1 Whether they..appeal for a reversal of the sentence to that higher court of educated scientific opinion to which we are all amenable.
1884 Law Rep.: Queen's Bench Div. 12 439 The Queen's Bench Division reversed his decision, and the present case is an appeal from that reversal.
1924 Amer. Mercury Nov. 288/2 The California Supreme Court has upheld the Northern California appellate justices in their reversal of the Sacramento trial court judgement.
1959 Virginia Law Rev. 45 448 Reversal of one defendant's conviction upon grounds of illegal evidence does not entitle a codefendant to vacation of sentence.
1991 ABA Jrnl. Nov. 38/1 The plaintiff's attorney..contends there are no facts in dispute and said he is disappointed by the reversal.
2.
a. The opposite or contrary of something; = reverse n. 1a.
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the world > relative properties > order > order, sequence, or succession > [noun] > reversal of natural or proper order
somersault1530
inversion1546
hysteron proteron1584
preposterousness1607
renversement1610
reversala1626
inverse1630
reversement1720
topsy-turvying1807
topsy-turvification1840
upending1968
a1626 L. Andrewes XCVI Serm. (1629) xiii. 737 The Spirit, that is, the Truth. And last, the reversall to this. That, as not these, without the Spirit.
1800 R. Bisset Douglas I. 315 There is..one very material defect in the moral sentiments of the play. It inculcates the reversal of the maxim ‘be just before you are generous’.
1885 Cent. Mag. May 67/2 It is not only not allied with the early superstitions, but is the reversal of them.
1922 D. J. Snider Biogr. William Shakespeare 453 The deepest, bloodiest soul-riving conflicts..—quite the reversal of that tranquil life at Stratford so concordant with the established social order.
1996 B. E. Stevenson Life in Black & White ii. 54 She is in one respect quite the reversal of Maria Scott.
2002 D. Horn In Image (2003) iv. 112 According to the rules of logic she had memorized, if this statement was valid, then its complete reversal was also true.
b. The action or process of reversing or being reversed; a change to an opposite direction, position, or course of action.role, sex, time reversal, etc.: see the first element.
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the world > space > relative position > inversion > [noun] > action or fact of being turned the reverse way
reversiona1450
reversal1648
the world > space > direction > [noun] > changing to face different direction or turning > to opposite direction
inverting1573
reverse1589
round turn1611
reversal1648
controversion1684
contraversion1706
volte-face1819
turnabout1833
about-turn1912
U-turn1915
about-face1930
U1971
heel turn1983
the world > movement > motion in a certain direction > backward movement > [noun] > turning back or reversal of course
charec1220
gainturna1225
gain-charingc1275
reverting1540
turn1575
reflectiona1616
reversal1648
turning1806
turnaround1959
1648 W. Montagu Miscellanea Spiritualia i. xv. §1. 199 The complyment with it seemeth to require a reversal of the instincts of Nature.
1698 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 20 416 Tornadoes..which made some small Reversal, though it was but for Two or Three Hours.
1794 R. J. Sulivan View of Nature II. 84 Doctor Franklin proved particularly..the effects of the reversal of the poles of magnets, as caused by lightning.
1814 H. F. Cary tr. Dante Vision III. xvii. 87 He shall cause Reversal of their lot to many people.
1833 J. F. W. Herschel Astronomy v. 197 The reversal of the seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres.
1880 S. Haughton Six Lect. Physical Geogr. iv. 187 The Monsoons are..produced by a reversal of the north-east trade winds.
1927 H. H. Hemming & D. Hemming tr. A. Siegfried Amer. Comes of Age i. 9 There has been a complete reversal of ethnic, social, and political thought.
1945 ‘G. Orwell’ in Polemic i. 43 Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next.
1989 E. S. Person Love & Fateful Encounters iv. 96 He appears to have compensated by means of his passionate nurturance of his lovers (a not uncommon reversal).
2005 Wall St. Jrnl. 13 July (Central ed.) c3/3 Sharp reversals in bond and currency markets have proved troublesome.
c. A change of fortune, fate, etc.; = reverse n. 5d.
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the world > time > change > alternation > change of fortune > [noun] > instance of
peripeteia1591
traverse1601
vicissitude1631
reverse1656
peripety1705
fluctuation1712
twine1768
revulsion1832
reversal1842
1842 Christian Missionary Civilization 169/2 It is therefore a great rarity to see an elderly person or, if an aged one be met with, it will be found that he or she has a tale to tell of sudden reversal of fortune, and dread of the workhouse.
1905 PMLA 20 554 This reversal of fate should, in order to create unexpectedness and, therefore, interest, be brought about by one who is related to the principal character by ties of blood or friendship.
1948 W. H. Auden Guilty Vicarage in Harper's Mag. 196 406/2 As in the Aristotelian description of tragedy, there is..also peripeteia, in this case not a reversal of fortune but a double reversal from apparent guilt to innocence and from apparent innocence to guilt.
2009 Jakarta Post (Nexis) 19 June 24 The top seed..suffered a cruel reversal of fate when she lost in the opening round.
d. A setback; a defeat; = reverse n. 5c.
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the world > action or operation > adversity > calamity or misfortune > [noun] > misfortune or ill-luck > instance of misfortune or ill-luck
unsitheOE
evila1300
mischiefa1325
illa1340
adversity1340
infortunea1393
infortunity1477
cladec1480
misfortunec1485
fortune1490
trouble?1521
stumble1547
infelicity1575
disgrace1622
unfortunacya1662
disgracia1740
miscanter1781
reversal1846
avalanche1850
rough spin1919
1846 D. L. Carroll Serm. & Addr. xiii. 262 The whole significancy of this metaphor refers to the insecurity of the wicked in their temporal prosperity. The chances of a sudden and sad reversal to them are the same as the chances of falling are to an individual who stands on an exceedingly slippery precipice.
1905 E. W. Sikes & W. M. Keener Hist. N. Amer. XIII. xii. 359 In the spring of 1855 the American party suffered a severe reversal in Virginia, where..the Democracy achieved a victory.
1985 Baseball Digest Mar. 45/1 Dave Righetti..suffered a greater reversal; after going 8-4 with a 2.06 earned run average as a starting pitcher he slipped so badly the following summer Yankee owner..exiled him to Columbus of the International League.
2009 Belfast Tel. (Nexis) 20 Nov. 10 [The] Dungannon coach..would be delighted to burst the Bangor bubble following his side's recent reversal at the hands of RBAI.
3. Photography. The interconversion of negative and positive images; spec. the production of a positive print from a negative; (in later use) the production of a positive transparency from an exposed film or plate without an intervening negative stage. Also: an image produced in this way.A positive image can be produced directly from a negative either by design (e.g. by using reversal film) or by accident (as in solarization).
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > photography > photographic processes > [noun]
daguerreotype1839
calotype1841
chrysotype1842
chromotype1843
ferrotype1843
tithonotype1843
amphitype1844
energiatype1844
fluorotype1844
Talbotype1844
daguerreotypy1853
ambrotype1854
bitumen process1858
carbon process1858
reversal1859
pyro-photography1869
vitrotype1875
platinotype1877
transferrotype1889
diazotype1890
kallitype1890
Joly process1894
reversal process1908
bromoil1909
bleach-out process1914
carbro1919
Finlay process1931
reversal processing1931
diazo1948
xography1965
push processing1966
1859 Photographic News 16 Sept. 23/2 I always noticed the reversal to occur after rinsing the plate with water and a fresh application of the developer.
1890 Hurter & Driffield in Jrnl. Soc. Chem. Industry 31 May 464/2 The transformation of the negative into the positive, the ‘solarisation’, ‘reversal’, &c.
1907 S. E. Sheppard & C. E. K. Mees Investigations Theory Photogr. Process ii. vi. 212 Various forms of reversal in the photographic process are known, not all of equal interest or importance.
1927 C. B. Neblette Photogr. viii. 205 No photographic process is, strictly speaking, free from the effects of reversal.
1969 Focal Encycl. Photogr. (rev. ed.) 1294/1 The positive image produced by reversal is..intrinsically finer in grain than the negative from which it is derived.
1986 Professional Photogr. Oct. 68/2 A third possibility is to produce the copy on film as a positive, or, a fourth, as a reversal.
2000 P. Read & M. Meyer Restoration Motion Picture Film ix. 66 Today black and white reversal is extremely uncommon.
4. Reversion to a former state, condition, or practice; an instance of this.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > change > change to something else, transformation > change of direction, reversion > [noun] > change to other or former condition
re-entry1599
reaction1792
shift1826
reversal1862
swing-back1862
flop1880
revert1895
throwback1923
swing-over1927
U-turn1929
right turn1940
swing-round1940
turnaround1941
turn-round1963
U-ey1976
switch-around1981
1862 C. P. Reichel Cathedral 19th Cent. 21 What I propose..is no reversal to antiquated and unsuitable modes and forms of thought and worship.
1893 Illustr. London News 1 Apr. 398/2 They had Nonconformity in the blood,..with occasional ‘throwings back’, or reversals, to Conformity.
1920 Amer. Jrnl. Physical Anthropol. 3 89 The phenomenon of multiple births in man represents a survival of or reversal to his former animal state.
1995 C. Nielsen Animal Evol. x. 85 I have chosen..to interpret their monociliarity as a secondary reversal to the ancestral condition.
Compounds
C1. General attributive (in sense 3), as reversal method, reversal paper, reversal stock, reversal transparency, etc.
ΚΠ
1890 Amer. Amateur Photographer 2 445 A satisfactory reversal method..has long been wanted.
1938 G. H. Sewell Amateur Film-making ii. 13 The residue of silver salts can then be exposed to light and developed, and it will be found that a positive image will result. That is known as the ‘reversal’ method.
1967 Economist 7 Jan. 67/3 Ciba's new process for making colour prints from reversal transparencies.
1969 M. J. Langford Advanced Photogr. xvi. 360 Using reversal paper to print direct from positive transparencies.
1983 P. Rowland Underwater Photographer's Handbk. i. 73 The chromogenic reversal paper takes roughly 18 minutes to process.
2007 M. Figgis Digital Filmmaking ii. 19 You shot reversal stock, not negative, and sent it off to Kodak.
C2. † reversal wind n. Obsolete rare a westerly wind blowing where an easterly one is usual or expected.
reversal film n. Photography film which gives a positive transparency directly when it is processed.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > photography > plates and films > [noun] > film > types of film
film negative1871
roll1889
roll film1895
reversal film1929
colour film1930
lenticular film1934
pan1940
test strip1940
flat film1950
integral tripack1953
lith1955
overhead transparency1966
1929 Brit. Patent 287,542 1/2 One or several series of motion pictures are taken on a cinematograph reversal film.
1962 Which? May 131/1 There are two types of colour film on the market—reversal film, which produces ‘positive’ transparencies (slides).., and negative film.
2002 Pop. Photogr. Apr. 68/1 Transparency film (a.k.a. positive, chrome, or reversal film) has been the color material of choice for legions of professionals.
reversal potential n. Cell Biology the membrane potential at which there is no net flow of ions across a membrane, the diffusion forces being balanced by the electrical forces; cf. Nernst potential n. at Nernst n. 4.
ΚΠ
1955 C. M. Brooks et al. Excitability of Heart vii. 180 The value of the resting transmembrane potential (94 mv. at 38° C.) and the reversal potential or ‘overshoot’ (35 mv. at 38° C.) do not change appreciably at temperatures within the range of 40° and 25° C.
1974 V. B. Mountcastle et al. Med. Physiol. (ed. 13) I. v. 170/2 Takeuchi further studied and analyzed the basis for the reversal potential (called equilibrium potential in these papers).
2009 Neural Computation 21 1683 At membrane potentials below the reversal potential, there is net influx of GABA.
reversal process n. Photography a process by which reversal is accomplished; esp. a development process which gives a positive transparency directly from an exposed film or plate, without an intervening negative stage.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > photography > photographic processes > [noun]
daguerreotype1839
calotype1841
chrysotype1842
chromotype1843
ferrotype1843
tithonotype1843
amphitype1844
energiatype1844
fluorotype1844
Talbotype1844
daguerreotypy1853
ambrotype1854
bitumen process1858
carbon process1858
reversal1859
pyro-photography1869
vitrotype1875
platinotype1877
transferrotype1889
diazotype1890
kallitype1890
Joly process1894
reversal process1908
bromoil1909
bleach-out process1914
carbro1919
Finlay process1931
reversal processing1931
diazo1948
xography1965
push processing1966
1908 Amateur Photographer & Photogr. News 29 Dec. 617/2 The intense interest aroused by the recently introduced autochrome plate may account for this reversal process receiving so much attention of late.
1944 T. A. Longmore Med. Photogr. 363 Development is carried out by the reversal process in order to produce a positive image.
2004 G. Schaub Amphoto's Guide Creative Digital Photogr. v. 81/2 Slide films are much narrower in their tolerances, due to the reversal process to which they are subjected.
reversal process v. Photography transitive to develop (a film or plate) using a reversal process.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > photography > photographic processes > [verb (transitive)]
daguerreotype1849
calotype1853
reversal process1961
push1966
push process1977
1961 U.S. Patent 2,984,567 1 Photographic silver halide emulsions..can be reversal processed.
1973 W. Thomas SPSE Handbk. Photogr. Sci. & Engin. ix. 547 Some black-and-white negative films can be reversal-processed.
1999 R. Hicks & F. Schultz Perfect Exposure i. 9/2 Unlike conventional films which are reversal processed, it has a clear film base.
reversal-processed adj. Photography that has been reversal processed; produced using a reversal process.
ΚΠ
1946 Jrnl. Franklin Inst. 242 209 Satisfactory projected images of reversal-processed film have been produced on the P4I equipment in less than 10 seconds.
1964 L. A. Mannheim tr. O. R. Croy Camera Copying & Reprod. 150 Reversal-processed prints are liable to yield uneven image densities.
2000 M. Langford Basic Photogr. (ed. 7) x. 182 The more exposure you give these reversal-processed films, the lighter your result.
reversal processing n. Photography development of a film or plate using a reversal process; an instance of this.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > photography > photographic processes > [noun]
daguerreotype1839
calotype1841
chrysotype1842
chromotype1843
ferrotype1843
tithonotype1843
amphitype1844
energiatype1844
fluorotype1844
Talbotype1844
daguerreotypy1853
ambrotype1854
bitumen process1858
carbon process1858
reversal1859
pyro-photography1869
vitrotype1875
platinotype1877
transferrotype1889
diazotype1890
kallitype1890
Joly process1894
reversal process1908
bromoil1909
bleach-out process1914
carbro1919
Finlay process1931
reversal processing1931
diazo1948
xography1965
push processing1966
1931 J. A. Dubray & R. F. Mitchell in H. Hall Cinematogr. Ann. II. 336 Resensitize the film during the reversal processing.
1973 W. Thomas SPSE Handbk. Photogr. Sci. & Engin. ix. 547 Films designed for reversal processing are available.
2000 L. Stroebel et al. Basic Photogr. Materials & Processes (ed. 2) viii. 214/2 The basic negative-working silver halide emulsion system can be used to produce positive images by means of reversal processing.
reversal speed n. Aeronautics the air speed above which the effect of a control surface is reversed, and at which it is nullified, by the aerodynamic effect of the elastic deformation caused by the action of the surface.
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society > travel > air or space travel > specific movements or positions of aircraft > aerodynamic forces and concepts > [noun] > speeds in relation to aerodynamic effects
hump speed1915
reversal speed1934
1934 Techn. Rep. Aeronaut. Res. Comm. 1932–3 42 810 The critical reversal speed at which the ailerons of a monoplane become ineffective due to its elastic deformation.
1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) I. 90/2 Elastic distortion of an airplane increases rapidly as its speed increases toward the divergence speed and reversal speed.
2004 W. F. Phillips Mech. Flight vi. 567 When a wing is very flexible in torsion..the aileron control reversal speed for the wing could actually be less than the wing stall speed.
ΚΠ
1698 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 20 415 Very high Lands, that of themselves doth most commonly give Reversal or Westerly Winds at Night.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
† reversaladj.
Obsolete.
Of a letter: containing a promise or commitment. Also as postmodifier.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > memory > effacement, obliteration > cancellation, revocation > [adjective]
revocatory?a1475
reversal1619
abolitionary1823
1619 tr. Reasons Bohemia to reiect Archiduke Ferdinand 16 Now in what fashion King Ferdinand hath made good his oath, & observed Reversall letters, it is notorious to the whole world.
1656 P. Heylyn Surv. Estate France 77 The King desiring an Impost of one Livre in five Crowns..could obtain it but for one year only; and that not without speciall letters reversall, that it should no way incommodate their priviledges.
a1715 Bp. G. Burnet Hist. Own Time (1724) I. 314 After his death there were reversal letters found among his papers.
1798 R. Clifford tr. A. Barruel Mem. Hist. Jacobinism III. xiii. 301 The guardians of the first tablets and reversal letters of the brethren.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1489
adj.1619