Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The locus of the centers of curvature of a given curve.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Evolved; developed: as, an evolute curve.
  • noun In mathematics, a curve which is the locus of the center of curvature of another curve, or the envelop of the normals to the latter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geom.) A curve from which another curve, called the involute or evolvent, is described by the end of a thread gradually wound upon the former, or unwound from it. See involute. It is the locus of the centers of all the circles which are osculatory to the given curve or evolvent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A curve comprising the centers of curvature of another curve.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin ēvolūtus, past participle of ēvolvere, to unroll; see evolve.]

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