imbricated

English

Etymology

Participle adjective, imbricate +‎ -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪmbɹɪkeɪtɪd/

Adjective

imbricated (comparative more imbricated, superlative most imbricated)

1. Overlapping, like scales or roof-tiles; intertwined.
   • 1851, G. F. Richardson, Thomas Wright, “Fossil Botany”, in An Introduction to Geology, and Its Associate Sciences, Mineralogy, Fossil Biology, and Palæontology, new, rev. and considerably enl. edition, London: H[enry] G[eorge] Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, →OCLC, page 171:

     When the leaves and small and densely imbricated, they are generally considered to belong either to lycopodiaceæ or coniferæ; but there is so little to distinguish these families in a fossil state, that there is scarcely any means of demonstrating to which of these such genera as lycopodites, lycopodendron, juniperites, taxites, &c., and the like, actually belong.

   • 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:

     He stopped speaking for a moment, like a man walking who comes to a brink; perhaps it was an artful pause, but it made the stars, the night, seem to wait, as if story, narration, history, lay imbricated in the nature of things; and the cosmos was for the story, not the story for the cosmos.

   • 1996, Russell Hoban, Fremder, Bloomsbury 2003, p. 50:

     the spaceport filled up with emptiness and that imbricated silence made up of the low roar of the air-cycling system, the hum of the robot sweepers, the sizzle of the noctolux lamps, and the sound of distant footsteps.