involute

The visual tone of the show, like its deadpan, involute gags, is adult in the sense of 'grown-up,' as opposed to simply 'not for kiddies.'

From Slate ● Mar. 8, 2013

Co-scripted by Damon Lindelof of Lost, this film shares that series’ love for nested mythologies and involute philosophical riddles. is more interested in piling on big questions than in answering them.

From Slate ● Jun. 7, 2012

They were involute, introvert, indirect; they did not like questions and answers.

From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin

Involute teeth.—These are teeth having their whole operative surfaces formed of one continuous involute curve.

From Modern Machine-Shop Practice, Volumes I and II by Rose, Joshua

Resembling the last; glaucous; leaves narrow and often involute; the 5–9-flowered spikelets densely downy-hairy all over; glumes thinner with scarious margins, mostly long-acuminate.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

In the memoir, Mr. Adams relates his fascination with fractals — complexly involuted forms that we find buried in the shape of things like trees, coastlines and lightning bolts.

From New York Times ● Nov. 26, 2020

That is to say, their binding element is Katniss Everdeen, a heroine whose virtues are involuted to say the least.

From Slate ● May 21, 2020

The eldest boy, Ratan—Moni’s father—and my grandmother had shared the adjacent room, but, as Jagu’s mind involuted into madness, she had moved Ratan out with his brothers and taken Jagu in.

From The New Yorker ● Mar. 28, 2016

It’s so involuted the way people use those things.

From Forbes ● Sep. 9, 2014

The eldest boy, Ratan—Moni’s father—and my grandmother had shared the adjacent room, but as Jagu’s mind had involuted into madness, she had moved Ratan out with his brothers and taken Jagu in.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee