| a prefix meaning “toward,” “to,” “on,” “over,” “against,” orig. occurring in loanwords from Latin, but now used also, with the sense of “reversely,” “inversely,” to form Neo-Latin and English scientific terms: object; obligate; oblanceolate. |
| ob- pref. Inverse; inversely: obcordate. [New Latin, short for obversē, obversely, from Latin obversus, past participle of obvertere, to turn toward : ob-, toward, against (from ob, toward, against, before; see epi in Indo-European roots) + vertere, to turn; see versus.] |
Ob-
/ob/ prefix Obligatory. A piece of netiquette acknowledging that the author has been straying from the newsgroup's charter topic. For example, if a posting in alt.sex is a response to a part of someone else's posting that has nothing particularly to do with sex, the author may append "ObSex" (or "Obsex") and toss off a question or vignette about some unusual erotic act. It is considered a sign of great winnitude when one's Obs are more interesting than other people's whole postings.
[The Jargon File]
