Etymology

contravariant

C3O1N1T1R1A1V4A1R1I1A1N1T1

Today it means: Which reverses the order of morphism composition: formally, which associates each morphism f:X→Y to a morphism F(f):F(Y)→F(X). Full definition →

English variant ← Latin contrā ← Proto-Italic *komterād
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
  3. Proto-Italic*kom
  4. Proto-Italic*kom-
  5. Proto-Italic*komteros
  6. Proto-Italic*komterād
  7. Latincontrā
  8. Englishcontra-
  9. Englishvariant
  10. English todaycontravariant

From contra- + variant.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.