imbric-, imbrica-

An abnormality of positions of the eyelids in which the upper parts go over the lower parts when they are closed: The eyelid imbrications often cause a condition that leads to chronic irritation and inflammation of the eyes.

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.

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.

1. A reference to putting skin from one place to another part of the body: In surgical procedures, imbricated tissue is formed in similar ways as roof shingles.

Relating to an overlapping of a surgical repair in which one edge is sutured over the other instead of edge to edge, or in which a flat structure is repaired with parallel suture, or corset-like lines, in order to tighten it.

2. Etymology: from Latin imbricatus, from imbricare, "to cover with tiles"

A texture in certain minerals: Tridymite consists of imbricated textures of overlapping plates from a rare mineral of volcanic rocks that solidified at a high temperature.

1. A decoration or pattern showing an extension of tiles or oblong sections of material over others: There are ornamental imbrications on some pinnacles or towers.
2. A stacking pattern of sediment particles: One kind of imbrication is the result of strong, sustained water currents.

The imbrication of pebbles indicates a long existence of water-currents flowing in a direction.

Quite often, imbrication goes unnoticed, but it's always worth looking for when studying sandstones.

Imbrication is also called shingling, as the particles line up overlapping like shingles.

A description of plant or animal parts that overlap in regular patterns: There are imbricative areas as of the scales of fishes, the feathers of birds, flower petals, and parts of pine cones.

Characteristic of how structures overlap on each other like shingles on a roof: This imbricatively presented pine cone is an example of parts that are existing in groups above and below each other.