Involute
adj, noun, verb
adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 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.
Verb
- 1 To roll or curl inwards.
Adjective
- 1 Difficult to understand; complicated. formal
"These vulgar, pleasure-seeking people, so frank and clamorous, were too uninhibited for his shielded and involuted life."
- 2 Having the edges rolled with the adaxial side outward.
"Furthermore, the free anterior margin of the lobule is arched toward the lobe and is often involute[…]"
- 3 Having a complex pattern of coils in which younger whorls only partly surround older ones.
- 4 Turned inward at the margin, like the exterior lip of the shells of species in genus Cypraea.
- 5 Rolled inward spirally.
Adjective
- 1 (of some shells) closely coiled so that the axis is obscured wordnet
- 2 especially of petals or leaves in bud; having margins rolled inward wordnet
Example
More examples"These vulgar, pleasure-seeking people, so frank and clamorous, were too uninhibited for his shielded and involuted life."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin involutus.