[a. MFr. advers, -e refashioned f. OFr. avers, auvers:—L. adversus turned towards, turned against, hostile, pa. pple. of advert-ĕre, f. ad to + vert-ĕre, to turn. Poets have accented both a·dverse and adve·rse.]
A. adj.
1. Acting against or in opposition to, opposing, contrary, antagonistic, actively hostile. Const. to.
c. 1440. Partonope, 5716. That to crystes lawe ys aduerse And leeveth on machoun.
1575. Churchyard, Chippes (1817), 12. English volunteers served during those wars, in adverse armies.
1595. Shaks., John, IV. ii. 172. When aduerse Forreyners affright my Townes.
1628. Digby, Voy. to Medit., 47. The aduerse windes had hindered my designe of going.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 103. His utmost power with adverse power opposed.
1798. T. Jefferson, Writings (1859), IV. 210. The general spirit, even of the merchants, is becoming adverse to it.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., I. 805. On life’s rough sea they sail With many a prosperous, many an adverse gale.
1868. Helps, Realmah, viii. (1876), 239. To go over to the side of their adverse critics.
b. Law.
1858. Ld. St. Leonards, Handy Bk. Prop. Law, xxiii. 177. What I may call adverse possession, which now is a possession by a person not the owner during a certain number of years without acknowledgment of the right of the real owner, and yet not necessarily in open defiance of him.
2. Opposing any one’s interests (real or supposed); hence, unfavorable, hurtful, detrimental, injurious, calamitous, afflictive. Const. to.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 1192. O cruel Joue and thou fortune aduerse.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, i. 13. But the prosperous fortune of the kynge pryam torned in to aduerse.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, V. i. 26. Though time seeme so aduerse, and meanes vnfit.
1671. Milton, Samson, 192. In prosperous days They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head.
1806–31. A. Knox, Rem. (1844), I. 96. Strengthened instead of being shaken by adverse circumstances.
1867. Bright, Sp., Amer. (1876), 146. The presidential election of 1860 was adverse to the cause of slavery.
3. Opposite in position.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, 77. The Macrons … stood imbattled on the aduerse side of the riuer.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Adversaria … so called because the notes were written on the adverse or opposite page.
1872. Blackie, Lays of Highl., 167. He looked upon the bright green slope, that skirts the adverse hills.
B. sb. An adverse party, an adversary. rare.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 183. If Jove hath worsted This Typhon in the fight, we too shall worst Our adverse.
