AVERSE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Averse

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/əvˈərs/ Listen

adjective

Averse adj.

Turned away or backward. (Obs.) "The tracks averse a lying notice gave, And led the searcher backward from the cave."

Having a repugnance or opposition of mind; disliking; disinclined; unwilling; reluctant. "Averse alike to flatter, or offend." "Men who were averse to the life of camps." "Pass by securely as men averse from war." Note: The prevailing usage now is to employ to after averse and its derivatives rather than from, as was formerly the usage. In this the word is in agreement with its kindred terms, hatred, dislike, dissimilar, contrary, repugnant, etc., expressing a relation or an affection of the mind to an object.

Synonyms: Averse, Reluctant, Adverse. Averse expresses an habitual, though not of necessity a very strong, dislike; as, averse to active pursuits; averse to study. Reluctant, a term of the of the will, implies an internal struggle as to making some sacrifice of interest or feeling; as, reluctant to yield; reluctant to make the necessary arrangements; a reluctant will or consent. Adverse denotes active opposition or hostility; as, adverse interests; adverse feelings, plans, or movements; the adverse party.

verb

Averse v. t. & v. i. To turn away. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Averse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Averse" Quotes from Famous Books

... without your knowledge, and worries you with solicitation to take it, without paying the least regard to the opinion of those whom you have chosen to take care of your health. Let you be ever so ill, or averse to company, he forces himself at all times into your bed-chamber, and if it is necessary to give him a peremptory refusal, he is affronted. I have known one of those petit maitres insist upon paying regular visits twice a day ...

— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... I am an obscure, weak-minded woman,—weak-minded, you know, compared with men. I can be patronized,—yes, that's the word. Would you be equally amiable with a person as strong, as clear-sighted as yourself, with a person equally averse with yourself to being under an obligation? I think not. Of course it's delightful to charm people. Who wouldn't? There is no harm in it, as long as the charmer does not sit up for a public benefactor. If I were a man, a clever man like yourself, who had seen the world, who was not to be charmed ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... overvalue the piece in which he found it; but, mainly his judgments of letters and men were just. One of the dangers of scholarship was a peculiar danger in the Cambridge keeping, but Lowell was almost as averse as Longfellow from contempt. He could snub, and pitilessly, where he thought there was presumption and apparently sometimes merely because he was in the mood; but I cannot remember ever to have heard him sneer. ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of the furnace heat the rent does not reach that of a far less wholesome and commodious flat. There is one thing to be said in favor of a flat, however, and that is the women are in favor of it. The feminine instinct is averse to stairs; the sex likes to be safely housed against burglars, and when it must be left alone, it desires the security of neighbors, however strange the neighbors may be; it likes the authority of a ...

— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... find no intermediate standpoint in Protestantism, but fly off into the void of utter unbelief. The same tendency characterizes them in politics. They seem to oscillate between Caesarism and Red Republicanism; aiming not at reform so much as revolution. They are averse to any via media. When they have tried constitutionalism, they have broken down. So it has been with Protestantism, the constitutionalism of Christianity. The Huguenots at one time constituted a great power in France; but despotism in politics and religion proved too strong for them, and ...

— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

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