obratnost

Obratnost is a noun used in several Slavic languages, most notably Czech and Slovak, where it denotes agility, dexterity, or nimbleness in movement or manual tasks. It can describe the skill of a gymnast, a craftsman, or anyone who handles objects with precision and speed.

Origin and sense: The word comes from the verb obratit or obrátit, meaning “to turn” or “to reverse.” The basic idea is ease and speed in turning movements, or in performing tasks that require fine motor control, which in normal usage extends to a general sense of deftness.

In mathematical or philosophical contexts in Russian and some closely related languages, a cognate form obratnost' (обратность) is used to denote reversibility, reciprocity, or invertibility—the property that a process, relation, or function can be reversed or has an inverse. In such technical usage, it is not connected to physical dexterity and appears in terms like obratnost of a relation or operation.

Because the term spans different domains and languages, its precise meaning is determined by context: everyday speech typically refers to physical skill, while scientific contexts refer to reversibility or inverse relations.

See also: agility, dexterity, invertibility, reversibility.