evolve
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
chemistry
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin ēvolvō (“unroll, unfold”), from ē- (“out of”) (short form of ex) + volvō (“roll”).
Inflected forms:
form: evolves
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: evolving
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: evolved
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: evolved
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: To move (something) in regular procession through a system.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The animal soul sooner expands and evolves it self to its full orb and extent than the humane Soul
gloss: To change or transform (something).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Over several years the author evolved the story originally drafted as a novella into a real epic.
gloss: To cause (something) to come into being or develop.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: You will remove the pig, place it in the car, and drive it to my house in Wiltshire. That is the plan I have evolved.
The interpreter has spent a whole lot of time working the music before the performance, trying to evolve the most accurate translation possible.
[…]I ask you, rather, to evolve a suitable plan with due deliberation and report it to me."¹⁴
gloss: Of a population: to acquire or develop (a trait) in the process of biological evolution.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: How long ago did birds evolve beaks?
Oxygen levels on Earth skyrocketed 2.4 billion years ago, when cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis: the ability to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and waste oxygen using solar energy.
gloss: To cause (a population, a species, etc.) to change genetic composition over successive generations through the process of evolution.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: A hundred thousand years from now, will Homo sapiens have evolved into beings unrecognizable to their ancestors?
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
The ice age was nearly two million years old by the time the woolly mammoth evolved.
gloss: To give off (a gas such as carbon dioxide or oxygen) during a chemical reaction.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to evolve odours
gloss: To wind or unwind (something).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: And come, my Muſe! that lov'ſt the ſylvan ſhade, / Evolve the mazes, and the miſt diſpel; / Tranſlate the ſong; convince my doubting maid / No ſolemn Derviſe can explain ſo vvell— […]
gloss: To move in regular procession through a system.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: [T]he principles which Art involves, Science alone evolves.
Not by any power evolved from man's own resources, but by a power which descended from above.
gloss: To change, to transform.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: What began as a few lines of code has now evolved into a million-line behemoth.
An aide of Shah told Reuters that Shah had an early penchant for poetry that evolved into an affinity for rap music.
gloss: Of a trait; to develop within a population through biological evolution.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: How long ago did beaks evolve?
Related words: evolute
evolution
evolutive
evolvable
evolvement
evolver
Derived words: coevolve
co-evolve
evolvability
evolvingly
microevolve
nonevolving
photoevolve
reevolve
Translations: