volute

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a spiral scroll ornament, especially one forming a characteristic part of an Ionic column capital

   A carved volute curled outward from each side of the capital.

2. 2
   noun

   a large marine gastropod of the family Volutidae, or its smooth, often brightly patterned spiral shell

   The animal carried a large volute shell toward its burrow.

3. 3
   adj

   coiled or shaped in a spiral

   The fossil preserved a finely ridged volute form.

Borrowed through French volute and Italian voluta from Latin voluta, 'a rolled or spiral form,' the feminine of volutus, 'rolled,' from volvere, 'to roll.' Architecture and zoology independently apply the rolling spiral image to scrolls and shells.

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