Search the Dictionary

To start, roll, bound, spring, or fall back; to take a reverse motion; to be driven or forced backward; to return. Evil on itself shall back recoil. Milton. The solemnity of her demeanor made it impossible . . . that we should recoil into our ordinary spirits. De Quincey.

set close together to decorate a surface; also, decoration by means of reedings; -- the reverse of fluting.

To exchange anew; to reverse (a previous exchange).

The correspondence of pages, columns, or lines on the opposite or reverse sides of the sheet.

To reverse. [Obs.] Whose shield he bears renverst. Spenser.

Reversed; set with the head downward; turned contrary to the natural position.

Art or process of hammering out or pressing thin metal from the reverse side: (1) in producing repoussé work; (2) in leveling up any part of an etched plate that has been worked so as to cause a depression.

Ornamented with patterns in relief made by pressing or hammering on the reverse side; -- said of thin metal, or of a vessel made of thin metal. -- n.

Inverted in position; appearing to be upside down or reversed, as the flowers of the orchis and the leaves of some plants.

The state of luing on the back; the state of being resupinate, or reversed. Our Vitruvius calleth this affection in the eye a resupination of the figure. Sir H. Wotton.

To go back, in or over (a previous course); to go over again in a reverse direction; as, to retrace one's steps; to retrace one's proceedings.

Intended to reverse; implying reversal. [Obs.] Bp. Burnet.

Capable of being reversed; as, a chair or seat having a reversible back; a reversible judgment or sentence.

Serving to effect reversal, as of motion; capable of being reversed. Reversing engine, a steam engine having a reversing gear by means of which it can be made to run in either direction at will. -- Reversing gear (Mach.), gear for reversing the direction of rotation at will.

To turn back, or to the contrary; to reverse. Till happy chance revert the cruel scence. Prior. The tumbling stream . . . Reverted, plays in undulating flow. Thomson.

Turned back; reversed. Specifically: (Her.) Bent or curved twice, in opposite directions, or in the form of an S.

Hence, to annul, by recalling or taking back; to repeal; to rescind; to cancel; to reverse, as anything granted by a special act; as, , to revoke a will, a license, a grant, a permission, a law, or the like. Shak.

A kind of motor speed controller permitting of very gradual variation in speed and of reverse. It is especially suitable for use with motor driven machine tools.

ons. It is used to produce a ray circularly polarized from a plane-polarized ray, or the reverse. Nichol.

Cut flat on the reverse, and with a convex face formed of triangular facets in rows; -- said of diamonds and other precious stones. See Rose diamond, under Rose. Cf. Brilliant, n.