averse

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
9
Words With Friends
10
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/əˈvɜː(ɹ)s/

Definition of averse

5 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. Having a repugnance or opposition of mind.
    “The board is not averse to further talks.”
    ““I assure you, cousin,” replied the old gentleman, “that the Baron, notwithstanding his unpleasant manner, […] is not, after all, so bad as you make him out to be; and further, I should like to know why you are so averse to him.””
    “This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing.”
See all 5 definitions

adj

  1. Having a repugnance or opposition of mind.
    “The board is not averse to further talks.”
    ““I assure you, cousin,” replied the old gentleman, “that the Baron, notwithstanding his unpleasant manner, […] is not, after all, so bad as you make him out to be; and further, I should like to know why you are so averse to him.””
    “This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing.”
  2. Turned away or backward.
    “The tracks averse a lying notice gave, / And led the searcher backward from the cave.”
  3. (obsolete)Lying on the opposite side (to or from).
  4. Aversant; of a hand: turned so as to show the back.

verb

  1. (obsolete, rare, transitive)To turn away.
    “[…] and, in this panegyrick of the Teutonick blood, I have so prolixly insisted, not only to vindicate our own, as being a stream of the same, and to evince the nobility thereof, but withal to convince the folly of those wretches among us, who aversing ours do so much adhere unto, and dote upon descents from France and Normandy.”
    “The inconveniences aversing from clandestine marriages are pointedly depicted in the last two lines, teaching lessons of morality to all romantic babies.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Latin aversus, past participle of avertere (“to avert”).

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