Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Facing or turned toward the observer: the obverse side of a statue.
- adj. Serving as a counterpart or complement.
- n. The side of a coin, medal, or badge that bears the principal stamp or design.
- n. The more conspicuous of two possible alternatives, cases, or sides: the obverse of this issue.
- n. Logic The counterpart of a proposition obtained by exchanging the affirmative for the negative quality of the whole proposition and then negating the predicate: The obverse of "Every act is predictable” is "No act is unpredictable.”
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Turned toward (one); facing: opposed to reverse, and applied in numismatics to that side of a coin or medal which bears the head or more important inscription or device.
- In botany, having the base narrower than the top, as a leaf.
- n. In numismatics, the face or principal side of a coin or medal, as distinguished from the other side, called the reverse. See numismatics, and cuts under maravedi, medallion, and merk.
- n. Hence A second aspect of the same fact; a correlative proposition identically implying another.
- n. Specifically, in logic, the contranominal of the inverse of a proposition.
Wiktionary
- adj. Turned or facing toward the observer.
- adj. Corresponding; complementary.
- n. The heads side of a coin, or the side of a medal or badge that has the principal design.
- n. logic The double negative of a statement e.g. All men are mortal => No man is immortal
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having the base, or end next the attachment, narrower than the top, as a leaf.
- n. The face of a coin which has the principal image or inscription upon it; -- the other side being the
reverse . - n. Anything necessarily involved in, or answering to, another; the more apparent or conspicuous of two possible sides, or of two corresponding things.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the more conspicuous of two alternatives or cases or sides
- n. the side of a coin or medal bearing the principal stamp or design
Etymologies
- From Latin. (Wiktionary)
- Latin obversus, past participle of obvertere, to turn toward; see obvert. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“On the obverse is a full-length representation of Liberty wearing long, flowing robes, seated on a rock, and head turned back to her right.”
Liberty Seated Quarter, No Motto, No Drapery, 1838-1840 : Coin Guide
“On the obverse is an image of eagles destroying a nest of snakes at the foot of a ruined tower, at the top of which is a nest of eaglets.”
“While its obverse is sharper than that of the Husak S-12, its strike and surface quality are not quite as impressive as the Husak S-12 1793 Liberty Cap. Even so, as it is so difficult to find 1793 Liberty Caps that grade Fine-15 or higher, this Very Fine grade Holmes S-12 is particularly appealing for a 1793 Liberty Cap and I would recommend it.”
“The obverse is dominated by a left-facing somewhat determined portrait of a native American chief wearing a full-feathered war bonnet.”
“The obverse is true of Vietnam, which over a longer period saw 9 million men in uniform, less than a third of the draft-eligible males in the pool, selected out largely on the basis of education or lack of it.”
“The face we call the obverse is entirely occupied by the body of a fantastic quadruped, partly chiselled in slight relief, partly engraved.”
“Longacre’s classical left-facing Liberty on the obverse is said to be modeled after an old Hellenistic sculpture, the Crouching Venus.”
Liberty Head Double Eagle, Without Motto, 1849-1866 : Coin Guide
“The left facing, wings outstretched in-flight eagle on the obverse is from Christian Gobrecht’s 1836 Liberty Seated obverse.”
“On the obverse was a picture of a young man in a Wehrmacht uniform; he was shot in the gut a few months into the Russian campaign.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Why the Neglect of Communist Crimes Matters
“On the one hand, the sovereign power to achieve the common peace and defence is the product of a positive calculation by which individuals “confer” their natural power, in exchange for the benefit of security; the obverse is the negative calculation whereby each individual limits his natural power over things in consideration of an equally tangible “fear of punishment” by the sovereign power.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obverse’.
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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fancy essay words
hiatus, ontology, exegesis, hermeneutics, dialectics, demiurge, ascertain, contention, eschatological, synecdoche, centripetal, centrifugal and 96 more...
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Verses
inverse, reverse, universe, obverse, adverse, averse, converse, bouleversement, diverse, overseas, oversee, oversew and 20 more...
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carolinacc's list
jettisoned, yearn, chrestomathy, catachresis, elation, gesundheit, ohne, tertium quid, iota, oscillation, argillous, flagrate and 67 more...
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MyList
peter out, fraying, jump on the bandw..., indignation, eclectic, hung up, salutary, hoary, warped, glaring, blue-collar, concomitant and 105 more...
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euphonic logorrhea
cephalopodous, plumulaceous, oblomovism, etiolation, pavonine, somnolent, logorrhea, fulguration, gossamer, prestidigitation, daffodil, inchoate and 174 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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I, Claudius
Words taken from I, Claudius by Robert Graves.
evocation, aureus, sestertii, denarii, assegai, pilum, framea, sibyl, propitiatory, duenna, tyrannicide, maggoty and 136 more...
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Rare Books
Words used in the rare book trade (of which I was once a part). For more about how such books are put together, see hernesheir's excellent The Bindery.
foxing, gilt, headband, bumped, endpaper, leaf, colophon, vellum, laid paper, boards, device, engraving and 168 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 151 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
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elij's Words
diegesis, intrinsic, semantic, salience, nonchalant, infosthetics, ambiguous, altruism, cynical, abstruse, vatic, encomium and 137 more...
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Minty Fresh
Terms used in coin collecting.
die, hallmarking, high relief, obverse, reverse, alloy, pantograph, planchet, proof, strike, riddle, bag marks and 93 more...
Tweets
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