in·vo·lu·tion

(ĭn′və-lo͞o′shən)

a. The act of involving.

b. The state of being involved.

2. Intricacy; complexity.

3. Something, such as a long grammatical construction, that is intricate or complex.

4. Mathematics An operation, such as negation, which, when applied to itself, returns the original number.

5. Embryology The ingrowth and curling inward of a group of cells, as in the formation of a gastrula from a blastula.

6. Medicine

a. A decrease in size of an organ, as of the uterus following childbirth.

b. A progressive decline or degeneration of normal physiological functioning occurring as a result of the aging process.

[Latin involūtiō, involūtiōn-, from involūtus, past participle of involvere, to enwrap; see involve.]

in′vo·lu′tion·al adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

involution

(ˌɪnvəˈluːʃən)

1. the act of involving or complicating or the state of being involved or complicated

2. something involved or complicated

3. (Zoology) zoology degeneration or structural deformation

4. (Biology) biology an involute formation or structure

5. (Physiology) physiol reduction in size of an organ or part, as of the uterus following childbirth or as a result of ageing

6. (Mathematics) an algebraic operation in which a number, variable, expression, etc, is raised to a specified power. Compare evolution⁵

7. (Grammar) grammar an involved construction, such as one in which the subject is separated from the predicate by an additional clause

ˌinvoˈlutional adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

in•vo•lu•tion

(ˌɪn vəˈlu ʃən)

n.

1. an act or instance of involving or entangling; involvement.

2. the state of being involved.

3. something complicated.

4. Biol. retrogression; restoration of a former state.

5. Physiol. the regressive changes in the body occurring with old age.

6. a complex grammatical construction in which the subject is separated from its predicate by intervening clauses or phrases.

7. a mathematical function that is its own inverse.

[1605–15; < Medieval Latin involūtiō. See involve, -tion]

in`vo•lu′tion•al, adj.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	involution - reduction in size of an organ or part (as in the return of the uterus to normal size after childbirth) biological process, organic process - a process occurring in living organisms
	2.	involution - a long and intricate and complicated grammatical construction grammatical construction, construction, expression - a group of words that form a constituent of a sentence and are considered as a single unit; "I concluded from his awkward constructions that he was a foreigner"
	3.	involution - marked by elaborately complex detail elaborateness, intricacy, elaboration complexity, complexness - the quality of being intricate and compounded; "he enjoyed the complexity of modern computers"
	4.	involution - the act of sharing in the activities of a group; "the teacher tried to increase his students' engagement in class activities" involvement, participation, engagement group action - action taken by a group of people commitment - an engagement by contract involving financial obligation; "his business commitments took him to London" intervention, intercession - the act of intervening (as to mediate a dispute, etc.); "it occurs without human intervention" group participation - participation by all members of a group
	5.	involution - the process of raising a quantity to some assigned power exponentiation mathematical operation, mathematical process, operation - (mathematics) calculation by mathematical methods; "the problems at the end of the chapter demonstrated the mathematical processes involved in the derivation"; "they were learning the basic operations of arithmetic"
	6.	involution - the action of enfolding something enfolding change of shape - an action that changes the shape of something

Translations

in·vo·lu·tion

n. involución, cambio retrógrado.

English-Spanish Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

"Talking of Herbert Spencer," he began, "do you really find no logical difficulty in regarding Nature as a process of involution, passing from definite coherent homogeneity to indefinite incoherent heterogeneity?"

Equally unperceived by her, Arthur slightly raised his shoulders, and spread his hands abroad, as who should say "What else can I say to her?" and moved away, leaving her to discuss her strawberries by 'involution,' or any other way she preferred.

View in context

Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another.

View in context

The tale itself is a mere sketch, with no involution of plot, nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if I have rehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over the mind which the shadow of the old Province House flings upon the loiterer in its court-yard.

View in context

And the punishment of it is an invasion of complexity, a tormenting, forcibly tortuous involution of feelings, the deepest form of suffering from which indeed something significant may come at last, which may be criminal or heroic, may be madness or wisdom--or even a straight if despairing decision.

View in context

Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables and hausers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.

View in context

He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses.

View in context

For a Cartan involution [theta] of G, we write g = l + p for the corresponding Cartan decomposition of the Lie algebra g of G and set K := [G.sup.[theta]] = {g [member of] G : [theta](g) = g}.

Classification of irreducible symmetric spaces which admit standard compact Clifford--Klein forms

Some specific topics include additive mapping in rings with involution, generalized skew-derivations on Lie ideals in prime rings, separability in algebra and category theory, and construction of global actions for partial actions.

Algebra and Its Applications: Proceedings of the International Conference Held at Aligarh Muslim University, 2016

Thus, EB becomes a determinant condition for the resumption of ovulation and involution of the uterus.

Metabolismo preparto y respuestas reproductivas postparto de matrices Nelore suplementadas en diferentes periodos de la gestacion

The endometrium shows irregularities because of incomplete involution during foal heat.

The Effect of Uterine Lavage and oxytocin Administration Before and After Breeding on Fertility in Mares in The First Postpartum Estrus