See Also: evolution(dictionary)
Evolution(health)
evolution(dictionary)
Evolution(medicine)
evolution(encyclopedia)
human evolution(encyclopedia)
organic evolution(medicine)
quantum evolution(medicine)
saltatory evolution(medicine)
spontaneous evolution(medicine)

evolution (iou)



evolution noun. E17.
[Latin evolutio(n-) (unrolling and) reading of a papyrus roll, from evolut- pa. ppl stem of evolvere EVOLVE: see -ION.]
Military & Nautical. A movement of a body of troops or ships carried out to change their disposition. E17.
b. gen. A wheeling about; each of a series of usu. ordered or deliberate movements, as of a dancer or a machine part. Usu. in pl. L17.
P. G. Wodehouse 'Do you do Swedish exercises?' 'I go through a series of evolutions every morning.'
The action of opening out or unfolding; chiefly fig., the orderly passage of a long train of events or of the time containing them. M17.
The process of developing in detail what is implicit in an idea or principle; the development of an argument; an outcome of such a process. L17.
The development of an animal or plant, or part of one, from a rudimentary to a mature state. L17.
J. T. Needham Nature..ever exerting its Fecundity in a successive Evolution of organised Bodies.
b. Any process of gradual change occurring in something, esp. from a simpler to a more complicated or advanced state; the passage of something through a succession of stages. Also, origination by natural development as opp. to production by a specific act. E19.
Times The evolution of massive stars. J. Plamenatz They have quarrelled about the stage that capitalism has reached in the course of its evolution, how close it is to collapse.
c. A process by which different kinds of organism come into being by the differentiation and genetic mutation of earlier forms over successive generations, viewed as an explanation of their origins. M19.
G. M. Trevelyan The whole idea of evolution and of 'man descended from a monkey' was totally incompatible with existing religious ideas. D. Morris At some point in the evolution of the squirrel family, the ancestors of this animal must have split off from the rest.
Math.
a. The process of finding a root of some given quantity. arch. E18.
b. The process of obtaining an involute from an evolute. Now rare. E18.
Chiefly Biology. Emergence or protrusion from an envelope, seed, vesicle, etc. M18.
The process of giving off gas, heat, light, or sound. E19.
Phrases: theory of evolution (a) Hist. the hypothesis that an embryo or seed is a development of a pre-existing form which contains the rudiments of all the parts of the future organism; (b) the theory that present-day organisms have come into being through a process of evolution (sense 4c above).
evolutional adjective of, pertaining to, or produced by evolution M19.
evolutionally adverb in an evolutional way L19.