[ad. L. convolūt-us, pa. pple. of convolvĕre: see CONVOLVE.] Rolled up together.
1. Bot. Of a leaf in the bud: Coiled laterally upon itself so that one margin is within the coil and the other without. Of petals in the bud: Coiled upon each other so that one margin of each is within the coil and the other without.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxvii. 423. Four petals … ofien convolute.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 67. Cotyledons leafy, usually convolute, occasionally plaited.
1857. Henfrey, Bot., § 113. If the leaf is rolled up from side to side like a plan, with only one edge free, as in the Cherry, &c., it is convolute.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 106. Leaves convolute in bud.
2. Conchol. Of a shell: Having the whorls flattened out in the direction of the axis and wound on each other, so as nearly or entirely to conceal the spire, the aperture being then as long as the shell, as in the cowries, Bulla, etc.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca (1856), 99. The shell of the gasteropods is usually spiral … the following are its principal modifications … elongated or turreted … cylindrical … convolute.
1872. Nicholson, Palæont., 249. Volutidæ.—Shell turreted or convolute.
3. gen. Rolled or folded together; having convolutions.
1874. Cooke, Fungi, 24. The form is lobed, folded, convolute, often resembling the brain of some animal.
1875. Blake, Zool., 243. In the Tetrabranchiata the funnel is formed by a convolute muscular plate.
B. sb. 1. Something of a convoluted form; a convolution, a coil.
1846. De Quincey, Syst. Heavens, Wks. III. 181. The lower lip … is drawn inwards with the curve of a marine shell—oh, what a convolute of cruelty and revenge is there!
2. Convolute to a circle: see quot.
1869. Sylvester, in Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., II. 137. My attention having been drawn … to Captain Moncrieff’s self-reversing gun-carriage, the rack in which for steadying and regulating the motion is the curve which would be traced on the plane of a wheel rolling on a rail by a point fixed on, above, or below the rail … (which I call a Convolute to the circle).
Hence Convolutely adv.
