involute

English

An image of an involute (sense 4) leaf from above and from the side

Diagram of the construction of two involutes (geometry sense) of a parabola

Alternative forms

• involuted

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[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, 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 in which younger whorls only partly surround older ones.
4. (biology) Turned inward at the margin, like the exterior lip of the shells of species in genus Cypraea.
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

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

• Finnish: involuutta
• French: développante (fr) f
• Tagalog: sultag

See also

• involution
• advolute
• convolute
• evolute
• revolute

References

• “involute”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “involute”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

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.