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

From convolvō + -ulus.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kɔnˈwɔɫ.wʊ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [koɱˈvɔl.vu.lus]

convolvulus m (genitive convolvulī); second declension

1. a caterpillar of a 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, 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)