volutation

English

Etymology

From Latin volutatio, from volutare (“to roll, wallow”), verb frequentative volvere, volutum (“to roll”).

Noun

volutation (plural volutations)

1. A rolling or wallowing.
   • 1658, Thomas Browne, “The Garden of Cyrus. […]. Chapter III.”, in Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, […] Together with The Garden of Cyrus, […], London: […] Hen[ry] Brome […], →OCLC, page 141:

     For ſphærical bodies move by fives, and every globular figure placed upon a plane, in direct volutation, returns to the firſt point of contaction in the firſt touch, accounting by the Axes of the Diameters or Cardinall points of the four quarters thereof.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “volutation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)