Emily Dickinson Lexicon

IN-VO-LU'TION, n. [Fr.; L. involutio. See Involve.]

1. The action of involving or infolding.
2. The state of being entangled or involved; complication. All things are mixed and causes blended by mutual involutions. Glanville.
3. In grammar, the insertion of one or more clauses or members of a sentence between the agent or subject and the verb; a third intervening member within a second, &c.; as, habitual falsehood, if we may judge from experience, infers absolute depravity.
4. In algebra, the raising of a quantity from its root to any power assigned. Thus 2 X 2 X 2 = 8. Here 8, the third power of 2, is found by involution, or multiplying the number into itself, and the product by the same number.