You searched for: “imbricating
imbricate (IM bri kayt") (verb), imbricates; imbricated; imbricating
1. To cause something to superimpose or extend over a specified area; such as, body tissue: There are times when surgeons imbricate parts of the body to overlap with certain fibers in order to improve the contour or shape and tensile strength of the tissue around a hole in the body.

Sometimes surgeons imbricate specific layers of tissue when closing a wound or some opening in a body part.

2. To lay or to arrange regularly so as to overlap: From the street, it was easy to observe the workers imbricating the roof with tiles which appears to be harder to accomplish than flat-surfaced roofs.
3. To form patterns in plants and animals that are producing parts being above and below each other: Fish scales are imbricated in a regular way as is presented in the picture below.
Example of imbricating fish scales.


imbricate bedding (s) (noun), imbricate beddings (pl)

A shingle-like structure in a deposit of flattened or disk-shaped pebbles or little rocks: Imbricate bedding is an elongated and commonly horizontal area of small cobble stones in sediments which are deposited so they overlap one on top of another one like roofing shingles.

Imbricate bedding comes from strong currents that move over a stream.

This entry is located in the following units: -cate (page 4) imbric-, imbrica- (page 1)