imbrication

English

Imbrication (sedimentary deposition): red lines highlight the edges of clasts and their orientation to the base (blue)

Wikibooks

Etymology

From French imbrication.

Noun

imbrication (countable and uncountable, plural imbrications)

1. A set of tiles or shingles that overlap like the scales of a fish.
2. (medicine) Overlapping of layers of tissue in wound closure or in correctional or reconstructive surgery.

   Coordinate terms: approximation, coaptation

   • 2009, Joseph Niamtu, “Face-lifts”, in Michael S. Kaminer, Kenneth A. Arndt, Jeffrey S. Dover, Thomas E. Rohrer, Christopher B. Xachary, editors, Atlas of Cosmetic Surgery, 2nd edition, Elsevier (Saunders), page 528:

     SMAS flaps or SMASectomies are considered imbrications in this chapter. SMAS tightening is probably a more accurate description with 'open' SMAS techniques referring to imbrication and 'closed' SMAS techniques referring to plication.

3. (geology) A sedimentary deposition in which small, flat stones are tiled in the same direction so that they overlap.
   • 1991, D. L. Southwick, G. B. Morey, “Tectonic Imbrication and Foredeep Development in the Penokean Orogen, East-Central Minnesota - An Interpretation Based on Regional Geophysics and the Results of Test-Drilling”, in Bulletin, US Geological Society, published 1904, C, page C7:

     The Archean basement beyond and beneath the northwest flanks of the turbidite basins constitutes the cratonic foreland against which northwest-directed tectonic imbrication is thought to have occurred.

4. (linguistics) A phenomenon occurring in many Bantu languages in which morphemes interweave in certain morphophonological conditions.
   • 2014, Sharon Inkelas, The Interplay of Morphology and Phonology, Oxford University Press, page 358:

     The Kiyaka perfective, applicative, and causative suffixes display an unusual type of infixation known in the Bantu literature as “imbrication” (see e.g. the discussion of imbrication in Tiene in chapters 4 and 6).

6. (programming) The use of relative positioning, often by varying amounts of indentation, to define hierarchical relationships between elements of code.

   Synonym: nesting

   • 2010 January 8, Charles Plessy, “Upstream MEtadata GAthered with YAml (UMEGAYA)”, in Debian Wiki‎^[1] (wiki), The Debian Project: Documentation Team, archived from the original on 2023-05-29:

     Only a subset of YAML is used: sequences are only expected to contain scalars and mappings are only expected to contain a scalar or a mapping, but with only one level of imbrication.

Related terms

• imbricate
• imbricated

Further reading

• Imbrication on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Imbrex and tegula on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Morphophonology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Sedimentology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

imbrication f (plural imbrications)

1. imbrication

Further reading

• “imbrication”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.