involution

1. (countable, uncountable)Entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy.

   Einrollen

2. (countable, uncountable)A complicated grammatical construction.

   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.

   a long and intricate and complicated grammatical construction

3. (countable, uncountable)An endofunction whose square is equal to the identity function; a function equal to its inverse.

   Involution

4. (countable, uncountable)The shrinking of an organ (such as the uterus) to a former size.

   Involution, Rückbildung

   reduction in size of an organ or part (as in the return of the uterus to normal size after childbirth)

5. (countable, uncountable)The regressive changes in the body occurring with old age.

   Involution

6. (countable, uncountable)A cessation of development or progress involving intense inner competition.

7. (countable, neologism, uncountable)A state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead.

8. (countable, uncountable)The migration of a cell layer inward, sliding over an outer layer of cells. It occurs at gastrulation during embryogenesis.

9. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A power: the result of raising one number to the power of another.

   the process of raising a quantity to some assigned power

regular