involve

Definitions

1. 1.To envelop completely; to surround; to cover; to hide; to involve in darkness or obscurity. And leave a singèd bottom all involved With stench and smoke. Milton.
2. 2.To complicate or make intricate, as in grammatical structure. "Involved discourses." Locke.
3. 3.To connect with something as a natural or logical consequence or effect; to include necessarily; to imply. He knows His end with mine involved. Milton. The contrary necessarily involves a contradiction. Tillotson.
4. 4.To take in; to gather in; to mingle confusedly; to blend or merge. [R.] The gathering number, as it moves along, Involves a vast involuntary throng. Pope. Earth with hell To mingle and involve. Milton.
5. 5.To envelop, infold, entangle, or embarrass; as, to involve a person in debt or misery.
6. 6.To engage thoroughly; to occupy, employ, or absorb. "Involved in a deep study." Sir W. Scott.
7. 7.(Math.) To raise to any assigned power; to multiply, as a quantity, into itself a given number of times; as, a quantity involved to the third or fourth power. -- To Involve, Imply. Imply is opposed to express, or set forth; thus, an implied engagement is one fairly to be understood from the words used or the circumstances of the case, though not set forth in form. Involve goes beyond the mere interpretation of things into their necessary relations; and hence, if one thing involves another, it so contains it that the two must go together by an indissoluble connection. War, for example, involves wide spread misery and death; the premises of a syllogism involve the conclusion.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Related questions

• What does "involve" mean?
• What is another word for "involve"?

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is involve.

• What is to envelop completely; to surround; to cover; to hide; to involve in darkness or obscurity. And leave a singèd bottom all involved With stench and smoke. Milton called?
• What is to complicate or make intricate, as in grammatical structure. "Involved discourses." Locke called?
• What is to envelop, infold, entangle, or embarrass; as, to involve a person in debt or misery called?
• What is to engage thoroughly; to occupy, employ, or absorb. "Involved in a deep study." Sir W. Scott called?