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obverse
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
obverse
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But the obverse is more important; the network of help and contacts.
▪ Exoneration is in a sense the obverse of responsibility.
▪ However, the significance of this is questionable, as extant specimens all emanate from a single obverse die.
▪ No doubt the coin is always fascinated by its obverse.
▪ The obverse of money market advances is money market deposits, and these work in the same way.
▪ This may be seen as the obverse of racial discrimination; but an equal opportunities argument is not merely that.
▪ This was the obverse of the image of the industrious Catalan artisan as the basis of industrial progress.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Obverse

Obverse \Ob*verse"\ ([o^]b*v[~e]rs"), a. [L. obversus, p. p. of obvertere. See Obvert.] Having the base, or end next the attachment, narrower than the top, as a leaf.

Obverse

Obverse \Ob"verse\ ([o^]b"v[~e]rs), n. [Cf. F. obverse, obvers. See Obverse, a.]

  1. The face of a coin which has the principal image or inscription upon it; -- the other side being the reverse.

  2. Anything necessarily involved in, or answering to, another; the more apparent or conspicuous of two possible sides, or of two corresponding things.

    The fact that it [a belief] invariably exists being the obverse of the fact that there is no alternative belief.
    --H. Spencer.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
obverse

"turned toward the observer, frontal," 1650s, from Latin obversus "turned against, directed toward," past participle of obvertere "to turn toward or against," from ob "toward" (see ob-) + vertere "to turn" (see versus). According to OED, not in common use until the end of the 18th century. The noun, in reference to coins, medals, etc. (opposite of reverse), is attested from 1650s. Related: Obversely.

Wiktionary
obverse

a. 1 turned or facing toward the observer. 2 corresponding; complementary. 3 (context botany English) Having the base, or end next to the attachment, narrower than the top. n. 1 The ''heads'' side of a coin, or the side of a medal or badge that has the principal design. 2 (context logic English) The double negative of a statement e.g. ''All men are mortal'' => ''No man is immortal''

WordNet
obverse

  1. n. the more conspicuous of two alternatives or cases or sides; "the obverse of this issue"

  2. the side of a coin or medal bearing the principal stamp or design [ant: reverse]

Usage examples of "obverse".

He may also perceive a resemblance in the wine to the studious mind, which is the obverse of our mortality, and throws off acids and crusty particles in the piling of the years, until it is fulgent by clarity.

The obverse of the gypsum panel, out in the hall, was covered in the faded Jugendstil paper, a pattern of tall interlocking poppies, that decorated all the hallways of the building.

And one may tentatively define his relation to Slavophilism as being the exact obverse of his attitude toward the radicals: while personally unsympathetic to the social biases of the Slavophils, he nonetheless found in their writings a justification for many of his own most intimate idea-feelings.

The worn, serene, androgynous face on its obverse was not the face of Vodalus.

The people of that period considered it indispensable to translate the whole world into a forest of Symbols, Hints, Equestrian Games, Masquer­ades, Paintings, Courtly Arms, Trophies, Blazons, Escutcheons, Ironic Figures, Sculpted Obverses of Coins, Fables, Allegories, Apologias, Epigrams, Riddles, Equivocations, Proverbs, Watch­words, Laconic Epistles, Epitaphs, Parerga, Lapidary Engravings, Shields, Glyphs, Clipei, and if I may, I will stop here—but they did not stop.

But probably this Ground had been opened and digged before, though out of the Memory of Man, for we found divers small Pieces of Pots, Sheeps Bones, sometimes an Oyster-shell a Yard deep in the Earth, an unusual Coin of the Emperor Volusianus, having on the Obverse the head of the Emperor, with a Radiated Crown, and this Inscription, Imp.

Each bore the head of the Rankan ruler on the obverse, with a stylized lightning bolt and some letters abbreviating something or other that was doubtless important in Ranke.

She flipped it to the obverse, and light skidded off the polished metal surface, snagging on the roughness of engraving.

The silver piece he produced was a trade coin, blank except for the stamp of a tiny scale exactly in the center of the obverse.