Definition of: involution

(in′və·l′shən) noun
1. The act of involving, infolding, or rolling up, or the state of being involved or rolled up; complication; entanglement.
2. Something involved, rolled up, or entangled.
3. Physiol. a The return of an organ to its normal condition after a physiological increase in its size and structure: the involution of the womb after childbirth, b Retrograde development; the physiological decline preceding and accompanying old age.
4. Math. The multiplication of a quantity by itself any number, of times; the raising of a quantity to any power.
5. In rhetoric, complicated or cumbrous arrangement of words, clauses, or phrases, caused by the insertion of qualifying or modifying phrases between words that belong together.
6. Biol. Degeneration; retrograde evolution.