[f. L. volūt-, ppl. stem of volvĕre to turn, after revolution, etc.]
1. A rolling or revolving movement. Also fig.
1610. J. Mason, Turke, II. iii. E 3. This … shall conduct him to the bed of Borgias: amidst whose waking plotts & state volutions, the amorous youth must needs be hartyly welcome.
1741. H. Brooke, Constantia, 804, Wks. 1789, I. 306. Yet these the inanimate volution keep, And roll eliptic thro’ the boundless deep.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., II. 43. The [waterspout’s] swift volution, and the enormous train, Let sages versed in nature’s lore explain.
1819. Shelley, Ess. & Lett. (1852), II. 216. To bear them over the earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest have the ever-changing trunk of a waterspout.
1828. [Mary Berry], Soc. Life England & France, 395. The art of quickening at pleasure the motion of his heart he certainly possessed, as he made his pulse keep pace with the volutions of the divining rod.
2. A spiral turn or twist; a coil or convolution.
1752. J. Hill, Hist. Anim., 152. At the head there stands a small conic clavicle, formed of about four volutions.
1766. Phil. Trans., LVI. 208. The crane … has such a turning of the aspera arteria in the keel of the sternum; but the volution of this bird is round within the bone. Ibid. (1786), LXXVI. 161. It is generally coiled up into four volutions.
1842. Poe, Marie Roget, Wks. 1864, I. 220. Two circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes, or of a rope in more than one volution.
1854. S. P. Woodward, Mollusca, II. 191. Nidamental ribbon rather wide, forming a spiral coil of few volutions.
3. A whorl of a spiral shell.
1884. Proc. Zool. Soc., 262. Four specimens of a small Melania were collected … all eroded at the upper part of the spire, leaving only four volutions remaining.
