imbrication

noun

Etymology: From French imbrication, from Latin imbricātus, from imbricō, from imbrex. By surface analysis, imbricate + -ion.

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

   “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. A sedimentary deposition in which small, flat stones are tiled in the same direction so that they overlap.

   “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. A phenomenon occurring in many Bantu languages in which morphemes interweave in certain morphophonological conditions.

   “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).”

5. The use of relative positioning, often by varying amounts of indentation, to define hierarchical relationships between elements of code.

   “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.”