the.com/overturn
When power admits it changed its mind, decades late and under oath.
means To reverse a prior decision, ruling, or law, officially and completely, so that it no longer holds force.
from A straightforward compound from over- (meaning 'so as to upset or displace') and turn, rooted in Old English tyrnan/turnian, itself borrowed from Latin tornare — 'to turn on a lathe.' The physical image is literally a thing flipped upside down or knocked over; the legal and political sense of upending a ruling or verdict grew naturally from that, used in English since the medieval period.
- legal use
- higher court voids a lower ruling entirely
- etymology
- literally to flip something upside down
- precedent risk
- overturning one ruling can destabilize thousands of others
- not reversal
- reversal changes outcome, overturn kills the rule itself