involute

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin involutus.

Adjective

involute (comparative more involute, superlative most involute)

  1. (formal) Difficult to understand; complicated.
    • 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
      These vulgar, pleasure-seeking people, so frank and clamorous, were too uninhibited for his shielded and involuted life.
  2. (botany) Having the edges rolled with the adaxial side outward.
    • 1992, Rudolf M. Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, page 7
      Furthermore, the free anterior margin of the lobule is arched toward the lobe and is often involute […]
  3. (biology, of shells) Having a complex pattern of coils.
  4. (biology) Turned inward at the margin, like the exterior lip of the Cyprea.
  5. (biology) Rolled inward spirally.

Verb

involute (third-person singular simple present involutes, present participle involuting, simple past and past participle involuted)

  1. To roll or curl inwards.

Noun

involute (plural involutes)

  1. (geometry) A curve that cuts all tangents of another curve at right angles; traced by a point on a string that unwinds from a curved object.

Translations

See also

Italian

Adjective

involute

  1. feminine plural of involuto

Latin

Participle

involūte

  1. vocative masculine singular of involūtus

References

  • involute in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • involute in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
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