devolve

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It was largely NHS abuses that led Scotland to devolve, and ...

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Definitions (15)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. transitive verb To pass on or delegate to another: The senator devolved the duties of office upon a group of aides.
  2. transitive verb Archaic To cause to roll onward or downward.
  3. intransitive verb To be passed on or transferred to another: The burden of proof devolved upon the defendant. The estate devolved to an unlikely heir.
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Examples (50)

  • Had this last gentleman survived his illustrious brother, he would, of course, have succeeded to his lordship's titles; which now devolve, augmented by an earldom, on the Reverend William Nelson, Rector of Hilborough; the sole remaining brother of this numerous family, most of whom died in their minority. —  The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I
  • But financial institutions are keen to devolve responsibility to customers and you won't always be so fortunate. —  PC Advisor News
  • I love it when conservitives come on TYT and when conservitive hosts have liberals on their shows, But it is the exception when these debates don't devolve into shouting interuptions and name calling. —  The Young Turks
  • Maybe it's just me, but I tend to get annoyed at conversations which devolve into endless queries as to my mental capacity. —  Jottings from the Granite Studio
  • As with other manifestations of the White man's Indian, the ecological Indian has important political and social consequences for Native peoples, in part because the discussion that surrounds the ecological Indian has sometimes shown a tendency to devolve into "wholesale categorization of [Native Americans] as being either conservationists or savages." —  Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en]
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English devolven, to transfer, from Old French devolver, to confer, ascribe, from Latin dēvolvere, to roll down, fall to : dē-, de- + volvere, to roll; see wel-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Spanish Portuguese devolver = Italian devolvere, from Latin devolvere, roll down, from de, down, + volvere, roll: see voluble. Cf. evolve, revolve.
 

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/dəˈvɑlv/
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