It informs hibernate to ignore that end of the relationship. If the one-to-many was marked as inverse, hibernate would create a child->parent relationship (child.getParent). If the one-to-many was marked as non-inverse then a child->parent relationship would be created.
In Hibernate, only the relationship owner should maintain the relationship, and the inverse keyword is created to defines which side is the owner to maintain the relationship. However the inverse keyword itself is not verbose enough, I would suggest change the keyword to relationship_owner.
In short, inverse=true means this is the relationship owner, and inverse=false (default) means its not.
Suppose Stock is parent and StockDailyRecords is Child object.
Inverse keyword is applied in one to many relationship. Heres the question, if save or update operation perform in Stock object, should it update the stockDailyRecords relationship?
1. inverse=true
If inverse=true in the set variable, it means stock_daily_record is the relationship owner, so Stock will NOT UPDATE the relationship.
2. inverse=false
If inverse=false (default) in the set variable, it means stock is the relationship owner, and Stock will UPDATE the relationship.
If keyword inverse is not define, the inverse = false will be used, which is