develop

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To bring from latency to or toward fulfillment: an instructor who develops the capabilities of each student.
2. v. To expand or enlarge: developed a national corporation into a worldwide business.
3. v. To aid in the growth of; strengthen: exercises that develop muscles.
4. v. To improve the quality of; refine: develops his recipes to perfection; an extra year of study to develop virtuosic technique.
5. v. To cause to become more complex or intricate; add detail and fullness to; elaborate: began with a good premise but developed it without imagination.
6. v. Music To elaborate (a theme) with rhythmic and harmonic variations.
7. v. To bring into being gradually: develop a new cottage industry.
8. v. To set forth or clarify by degrees: developed her thesis in a series of articles.
9. v. To come to have gradually; acquire: develop a taste for opera; develop a friendship.
10. v. To become affected with; contract; developed a rash; developed agoraphobia.
11. v. To cause gradually to acquire a specific role, function, or form, as:
12. v. To influence the behavior of toward a specific end: an investigator who develops witnesses through flattery and intimidation.
13. v. To cause (a tract of land) to serve a particular purpose: developed the site as a community of condominiums.
14. v. To make available and effective to fulfill a particular end or need: develop the state's water resources to serve a growing population.
15. v. To convert or transform: developed the play into a movie.
16. v. Games To move (a chess piece) to or toward a more strategic position.
17. v. To process (a photosensitive material), especially with chemicals, in order to render a recorded image visible.
18. v. To render (an image) visible by this means.
19. v. To grow by degrees into a more advanced or mature state: With hard work, she developed into a great writer. See Synonyms at mature.
20. v. To increase or expand.
21. v. To improve; advance: Their skill developed until it rivaled their teacher's.
22. v. To come gradually into existence or activity: Tension developed between students and faculty.
23. v. To come gradually to light; be disclosed: reports the news as it develops.
24. v. Biology To progress from earlier to later stages of a life cycle: Caterpillars develop into butterflies.
25. v. Biology To progress from earlier to later or from simpler to more complex stages of evolution.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To uncover or unfold gradually; lay open by successive steps; disclose or mate known in detail, as something not apparent or withheld from notice; bring or work out in full: as, the general began to develop the plan of his operations; to develop a plot; to develop an idea.
2. In photography, to induce the chemical changes in (the film of a plate which has been exposed in the camera or of a gelatino-bromide print) necessary to cause a latent image or picture to become visible, and, in the ease of a negative, to assume proper density to admit of reproduction by a process of printing.
3. In biology, to cause to go through the process of natural evolution from a previous and lower stage, or from un embryonic state to a later and more complex or perfect one.
4. In mathematics: To express in an extended form, as in a series, which lends itself more readily to computation or other treatment.
5. To advance from one stage to another by a process of natural or inherent evolution; specifically, in biology, to pass from the lowest stage through others of greater maturity toward the perfect or finished state: as, the fetus develops in the womb; the seed develops into the plant.
6. To become apparent; show itself: as, his schemes developed at length; specifically, in photography, to become visible, as a picture under the process of development. See development
7. In biology, to evolve; accomplish an evolutionary process or result.

Wiktionary

1. v. To change with a specific direction, progress.
2. v. To progress through a sequence of stages.
3. v. To create.
4. v. To bring out images latent in photographic film.
5. v. To place one's pieces actively.
6. v. To cause a ball to become more open and available to be played on later. Usually by moving it away from the cushion, or by opening a pack.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To free from that which infolds or envelops; to unfold; to lay open by degrees or in detail; to make visible or known; to disclose; to produce or give forth
2. v. To unfold gradually, as a flower from a bud; hence, to bring through a succession of states or stages, each of which is preparatory to the next; to form or expand by a process of growth; to cause to change gradually from an embryo, or a lower state, to a higher state or form of being
3. v. To advance; to further; to prefect; to make to increase; to promote the growth of.
4. v. To change the form of, as of an algebraic expression, by executing certain indicated operations without changing the value.
5. v. To cause to become visible, as an invisible or latent image upon plate, by submitting it to chemical agents; to bring to view.
6. v. To go through a process of natural evolution or growth, by successive changes from a less perfect to a more perfect or more highly organized state; to advance from a simpler form of existence to one more complex either in structure or function
7. v. To become apparent gradually

WordNet 3.0

1. v. move into a strategically more advantageous position
2. v. cause to grow and differentiate in ways conforming to its natural development
3. v. generate gradually
4. v. come into existence; take on form or shape
5. v. become technologically advanced
6. v. come to have or undergo a change of (physical features and attributes)
7. v. create by training and teaching
8. v. grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment
9. v. expand in the form of a series
10. v. superimpose a three-dimensional surface on a plane without stretching, in geometry
11. v. happen.
12. v. work out
13. v. make visible by means of chemical solutions
14. v. change the use of and make available or usable
15. v. grow emotionally or mature
16. v. be gradually disclosed or unfolded; become manifest
17. v. gain through experience
18. v. move one's pieces into strategically more advantageous positions
19. v. make something new, such as a product or a mental or artistic creation
20. v. elaborate by the unfolding of a musical idea and by the working out of the rhythmic and harmonic changes in the theme
21. v. elaborate, as of theories and hypotheses