involute

comparative more involute · superlative most involute · alternative involuted

1. formalDifficult to understand; complicated.

   These vulgar, pleasure-seeking people, so frank and clamorous, were too uninhibited for his shielded and involuted life.

   1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

2. biologyHaving 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[…]

   1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 7

3. biologyHaving a complex pattern of coils in which younger whorls only partly surround older ones.
4. biologyTurned inward at the margin, like the exterior lip of the shells of species in genus Cypraea.
5. biologyRolled inward spirally.

present singular third person involutes · participle present involuting · participle past involuted · past involuted · alternative involuted

1. To roll or curl inwards.

plural involutes · alternative involuted

1. geometryA curve that cuts all tangents of another curve at right angles; traced by a point on a string that unwinds from a curved object.

   Synonyms: evolvent