involution

in·vo·lu·tion  (nv-lshn)

n.

1.

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.

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[Latin involti, involtin-, from involtus, past participle of involvere, to enwrap; see involve.]

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invo·lution·al adj.

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involution  (nv-lshn)

1. A mathematical operation, such as negation, which, when applied to itself, returns the original number.

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

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

Thesaurus

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