convolvulus

From Latin convolvulus (“bindweed; caterpillar”), from convolvō (“convolve”).

convolvulus (plural convolvuluses or convolvuli)

1. (botany) Any of several plants, of the genus Convolvulus, found in temperate climates, having small trumpet-shaped flowers.
   • 1947, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 318:

     Toward it the torrent raced furiously, fed from above, where, down the left bank, transformed abruptly into a great wall of vegetation, water was spouting into the stream through thickets festooned with convolvuli on a higher level than the topmost trees of the jungle.

   • 1994, Edmund Swinglehurst, The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites: A Compilation of Works from the Bridgeman Art Library, Parragon Book Service Limited, →ISBN, “Stages of Cruelty · 1856–90 · Ford Madox Brown”, page 38/2:

     In this painting he uses the lovers for his narrative and makes his symbolic points with the convolvulus, signifying entanglements, climbing up the steps.

2. (zoology) A species of hawkmoth, Agrius convolvuli.
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 51,

     Already the convolvulus moth was spinning over the flowers.

• bindweed
• morning glory

• convolvolus

convolvō +‎ -ulus

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /konˈu̯ol.u̯u.lus/, [kɔnˈu̯ɔɫ̪u̯ʊɫ̪ʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /konˈvol.vu.lus/, [koɱˈvɔlvulus]

convolvulus m (genitive convolvulī); second declension

1. the caterpillar of the vine moth (Eupoecilia ambiguella), which wraps itself up in the leaves of the vine
2. larger bindweed, hedge bindweed, Rutland beauty, bugle vine, heavenly trumpets, bellbind, granny-pop-out-of-bed (Calystegia sepium)
3. (Medieval Latin) colic (severe pains that grip the abdomen, or the disease that causes such pains)

Second-declension noun.

• (colic): cōlica, dolor alvī (literally “pain of the bowels”)

• Translingual: Convolvulus (genus name)
• English: convolvulus
• Italian: convolvolo
• Portuguese: convólvulo
• Spanish: convólvulo

• “convolvŭlus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• convolvulus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• convolvŭlus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 427/2.
• “conuoluolus” on page 441/3 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)