English Explanatory Dictionary

evolution

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A change of position.
  2. A manoeuvre of troops or ships.
  3. A turning movement, especially of the body.
  4. A turned or twisted shape; an involution, a complex or intricate shape.
  5. An unfolding.
  6. The act or process of unfolding or opening out; the progression of events in regular succession.
  7. The opening out of a curve; now more generally, the gradual transformation of a curve by a change of the conditions generating it.
  8. The extraction of a root from a given power.
  9. The act or an instance of giving off gas; emission.
  10. Process of development.
  11. Development; the act or result of developing what was implicit in an idea, argument etc.
  12. A process of gradual change in a given system, subject, product etc., especially from simpler to more complex forms.

Pronunciation

/ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/ /ɛvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/ ĕv'ə-lo͞oʹshən ēv'ə- -lo͞oshʹn /ˌɛvəˈluʃ(ə)n/ /ˌivə-/ /ɛvəˈlʉːʃən/ en-us-evolution.ogg

Word forms

evolution evolutions

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ēvolūtiō, ēvolūtiōnis (“the act of unrolling, unfolding or opening (of a book)”), from ēvolūtus, perfect passive participle of ēvolvō (“unroll, unfold”), from ex + volvō (“roll”). Compare typologically Czech vývoj, Serbo-Croatian развој, Russian разви́ть (razvítʹ), развива́ть (razvivátʹ), разви́ться (razvítʹsja), развива́ться (razvivátʹsja), Russian разви́тие (razvítije), related to Proto-Slavic *viti (whence Czech vít, Russian вить (vitʹ)).

Antonyms

stagnation revolution extinction

Related words

antievolutionary evolute evolutional evolutionally evolutionarily evolutionary evolutionism evolutionist evolutionistic evolutionistically evolutive evolutor evoluture evolvable evolve evolvement evolver evolving nonevolutionary unevolutionary Darwinism neo-Darwinism

Derived words

antievolution bioevolution biological evolution coevolution co-evolution convergent evolution cosmic evolution cultural evolution deistic evolution ecoevolution Eeveelution emergent evolution evilution evogram evolutionary Evolution Day evolution denial evolution denier evolutiondidit evolutionise evolutionize evolutionlike evolution of the gaps evotard genetic evolution karyoevolution long term evolution macroevolution megaevolution mesoevolution metaevolution meta-evolution microevolution morphoevolution neoevolution neuroevolution organic evolution orthoevolution paleoevolution participant evolution photoevolution planetary evolution quantum evolution self-evolution social evolution speculative evolution stellar evolution theistic evolution time evolution unilineal evolution unilinear evolution

Translations

Arabic: تَطَوُّر Armenian: էվոլյուցիա Armenian: զարգացում Asturian: evolución Bulgarian: разви́тие Catalan: evolució Chinese Mandarin: 演變 /演变 Chinese Mandarin: 變遷 /变迁 Czech: evoluce Czech: vývoj Danish: udvikling Dutch: evolutie Esperanto: evoluo Esperanto: evoluado Estonian: evolutsioon Finnish: evoluutio Finnish: kehitys Finnish: muutos French: évolution Galician: evolución Georgian: ევოლუცია Georgian: განვითარება German: Evolution Hawaiian: liliuoli Hebrew: הִתְפַּתְּחוּת Hebrew: הִשְׁתַלְשְׁלוּת Hindi: क्रमविकास Interlingua: evolution Italian: evoluzione Javanese: épolusi Javanese: kamajengan Kyrgyz: өзгөртүм Latin: seriēs Latin: prōgressus Latvian: evolūcija Lithuanian: evoliucija Lombard: evoluzion Malay: evolusi Malay: ubah ansur Maltese: evoluzzjoni Māori: whanaketanga Māori: kukuwhatanga Marathi: उत्क्रांती Norwegian Bokmål: evolusjon Norwegian Nynorsk: evolusjon Occitan: evolucion Persian: تکامل Persian: فرگشت Polish: ewolucja Portuguese: evolução Romanian: evoluție Russian: эволю́ция Russian: разви́тие Serbo-Croatian: evolúcija
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on E Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary