Involution

Definitions

1. Entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy.
   countable, uncountable
2. A complicated grammatical construction.
   countable, uncountable
3. An endofunction whose square is equal to the identity function; a function equal to its inverse.
   countable, uncountable
4. The shrinking of an organ (such as the uterus) to a former size.
   countable, uncountable
5. The regressive changes in the body occurring with old age.
   countable, uncountable
6. A power: the result of raising one number to the power of another.
   countable, obsolete, uncountable
7. A cessation of development or progress involving intense inner competition.
   countable, uncountable
8. A state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead.
   countable, neologism, uncountable
9. The migration of a cell layer inward, sliding over an outer layer of cells. It occurs at gastrulation during embryogenesis.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“[…]usually his attention was diverted from her feet by her shrieks of laughter and the astounding involutions of her huge brown-yellow frame.”

“‘Gomez,’ said the mortician, ‘is an expert only on the involutions of his own⟳ rectum.’”

“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.”

“Involutions have⟳ the property that they are their own⟳ inverses.”

CEFR level