Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To develop or achieve gradually: evolve a style of one's own.
- v. To work (something) out; devise: "the schemes he evolved to line his purse” ( S.J. Perelman).
- v. Biology To develop (a characteristic) by evolutionary processes.
- v. To give off; emit.
- v. To undergo gradual change; develop: an amateur acting group that evolved into a theatrical company.
- v. Biology To develop or arise through evolutionary processes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To unfold; open and expand.
- To unfold or develop by a process of natural, consecutive, or logical growth from, or as if from, a germ, latent state, or plan.
- To unfold by elaboration; work out; bring forth or make manifest by action of any kind: as, to evolve a drama from an anecdote; to evolve the truth from a mass of confused evidence; to evolve bad odors by stirring a muck-heap.
- To open or disclose itself; become developed.
- In chem., geol., etc., to give off or make manifest by separation from a mixture or a compound: most commonly used of a gas or vapor: as hydrochloric-acid gas evolved from a mixture of common salt and sulphuric acid.
- In mathematics, to extract (roots).
Wiktionary
- v. To move in regular procession through a system.
- v. To develop.
- v. biology Of a population, to change genetic composition over successive generations through the process of evolution.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To unfold or unroll; to open and expand; to disentangle and exhibit clearly and satisfactorily; to develop; to derive; to educe.
- v. To throw out; to emit.
- v. To become open, disclosed, or developed; to pass through a process of evolution.
WordNet 3.0
- v. work out
- v. gain through experience
- v. undergo development or evolution
Etymologies
- From Latin ēvolvere, present active infinitive of ēvolvō ("unroll, unfold"), from ē ("out of"), short form of ex, + volvō ("roll"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin ēvolvere, to unroll : ē-, ex-, ex- + volvere, to roll; see wel-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“When I use the term evolve, I don't mean going from a fish to a human; I mean internal progress of the soul, a moving forward rather than backward, learning and applying it.”
The Huffington Post: George Elerick: Could Culture Emerge Out of a God Who Evolves?
“Of course not; even the word evolve will evolve, or evolute.”
“The single word "evolve" is never meant as an explanation obviously; there is a huge literature describing all of the mechanisms of evolution.”
“It is the strongest evidence yet that communication signals can evolve from the exaggeration and repetition of routine behaviours.”
“How did the characters evolve from the time you began imagining them?”
“The generations of mankind did not evolve from the intermarrying of brothers and sisters, as some propose.”
“Tasting a young Raveneau and knowing how it can evolve is also informative.”
Wine Advocate Writers Spark Ethics Debate - Wall Street Journal | Dr Vino's wine blog
“Anyone who thinks that nanobots are going to compete with one another and somehow evolve is jus talking crazy talk.”
Economics of Nanotechnology, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Rabid fans of “Sex and the City” will love seeing Carrie Bradshaw evolve from a regular girl into a sharp, insightful writer.”
WEEKLY BOOK RELEASES FOR APRIL 25TH | Open Society Book Club Discussions and Reviews
“We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naïve young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead.”
WEEKLY BOOK RELEASES FOR MARCH 28TH | Open Society Book Club Discussions and Reviews
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘evolve’.
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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reginaterra's Words
purl, blow, squish, andean, generality, adaptation, lush, pack, filter, acquiesce, abstraction, sweet and 508 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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More
aggrandize, augment, increase, improve, increment, evolve, incline, rise, expand
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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hifi_del_norte's Words
vegetable, spatula, bang, fluctuate, carnage, simple, audio, hi-fi, empanada, bonnie, gazpacho, memoirs and 108 more...
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luckylime's Words
cacophony, cascade, trigger, crunch, vellum paper, arduous, luminescent, voluminous, euphoric, bucolic, diaphanous, danger and 162 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Learned words
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
ailurophile, labyrinthine, lagniappe, colleague, anechoic, reglets, fluctuations, scalar, implicit, constitute, mortification, ambassadors and 629 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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ari
words
craven, perennial, incumbent, infraction, truancy, foreboding, missgiving, understudy, upkeep, withdrawal, retreat, underscore and 95 more...
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voc
due diligence, tally, stem, solely, tough, outstanding, escalate, alienated, evolve, trail, narrow
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b, e, d, g, p and t
decidedly, drench, defeat, delirium, deviant, distance, dimension, dust, dope, dissolve, dissipate, distortion and 63 more...
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vocab set 3
alternative, barter, commerce, confine, evolve, expand, expire, exploit, formal, inheritable, integral, mobility and 23 more...
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