What does "involution" mean?

Entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy.

How do you pronounce "involution"?

Pronounced //ɪnvəˈluːʃən//.

Common synonyms include: engagement, absorption, addition, ambages, anfractuosity, approximation.

//ɪnvəˈluːʃən// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Noun

1
Entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy. countable, uncountable
"[…]usually his attention was diverted from her feet by her shrieks of laughter and the astounding involutions of her huge brown-yellow frame."
2
the action of enfolding something wordnet
3
A complicated grammatical construction. countable, uncountable
"1917, James Huneker, Unicorns, New York: Scribner, Chapter 11 “Style and Rhythm in English Prose,” p. 129, Walter Pater’s essay on Style is honeycombed with involutions and preciosity."
4
the process of raising a quantity to some assigned power wordnet
5
An endofunction whose square is equal to the identity function; a function equal to its inverse. countable, uncountable
"Involutions have the property that they are their own inverses."

Show 10 more definitions

6
the act of sharing in the activities of a group wordnet
7
The shrinking of an organ (such as the uterus) to a former size. countable, uncountable
8
marked by elaborately complex detail wordnet
9
The regressive changes in the body occurring with old age. countable, uncountable
10
a long and intricate and complicated grammatical construction wordnet
11
A power: the result of raising one number to the power of another. countable, obsolete, uncountable
12
reduction in size of an organ or part (as in the return of the uterus to normal size after childbirth) wordnet
13
A cessation of development or progress involving intense inner competition. countable, uncountable
14
A state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead. countable, neologism, uncountable
15
The migration of a cell layer inward, sliding over an outer layer of cells. It occurs at gastrulation during embryogenesis. countable, uncountable