Definitions

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

  • transitive & intransitive verb To enclose or become enclosed in a sheath or similar covering.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To turn or become turned inward.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To infold or become infolded so as to form a hollow space within a previously solid structure, as in the formation of a gastrula from a blastula.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To sheathe; insert or receive as into a sheath; introvert: opposed to evaginate.

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

  • transitive verb To insert as in a sheath; to produce intussusception in.
  • adjective Sheathed.
  • adjective Having one portion of a hollow organ drawn back within another portion.

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

  • verb medicine, surgery To fold up or enclose into a sheath-like or pouch-like structure, either naturally or as part of a surgical procedure.
  • verb medicine To turn or fold inwardly.
  • verb medicine Infolding to create a hollow space where none had existed, as with a gastrula forming from a blastula.
  • adjective biology sheathed
  • adjective biology Having one portion of a hollow organ drawn back within another portion.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb fold inwards
  • verb sheathe

Etymologies

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

[Medieval Latin invāgīnāre, invāgīnāt- : Latin in-, in; see in– + Latin vāgīna, sheath.]

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Examples

  • When they wheel and dance like miniature starlings, the consequence is that three-dimensional shapes are formed, as tissues invaginate in response to the movements of cells;* or swell or shrink due to local patterns of growth and cell death.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • Its area therefore increases and, having nowhere else to go, it has little choice but to buckle or invaginate.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • Its area therefore increases and, having nowhere else to go, it has little choice but to buckle or invaginate.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • When they wheel and dance like miniature starlings, the consequence is that three-dimensional shapes are formed, as tissues invaginate in response to the movements of cells;* or swell or shrink due to local patterns of growth and cell death.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • The sheets of tissue that fold, invaginate and turn inside out in a developing embryo do indeed grow, and it is that very growth that provides part of the motive force which, in origami, is supplied by the human hand.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • The sheets of tissue that fold, invaginate and turn inside out in a developing embryo do indeed grow, and it is that very growth that provides part of the motive force which, in origami, is supplied by the human hand.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • These pits invaginate and pinch off to form coated vesicles (3).

    Physiology or Medicine 1985 - Press Release 1985

  • —These consist of two highly vascular inflexions of the tela chorioidea, which invaginate the lower part of the roof of the ventricle and are everywhere covered by the epithelial lining of the cavity.

    IX. Neurology. 4a. The Hind-brain or Rhombencephalon 1918

  • It is covered by and adherent to a fold of pia mater, named the tela chorioidea of the third ventricle, from the under surface of which a pair of vascular fringed processes, the choroid plexuses of the third ventricle, project downward, one on either side of the middle line, and invaginate the epithelial roof into the ventricular cavity.

    IX. Neurology. 4c. The Fore-brain or Prosencephalon 1918

  • Such a gastrula, formed mainly by overgrowth of the epiblast, is called an epibolic gastrula, as distinguished from the invaginate gastrula of amphioxus.

    Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata 1906

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