Definition of "evolution"

evolution

/ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural evolutions
1. A change of position.
  1. (military) A manoeuvre of troops or ships.
    Quotations
    Mean while, he never failed to be present, when any regiment, or corps of men, were drawn out to be exercised and reviewed, and accompanied them in all their evolutions […] .
    1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […]
    Major Holroyd, who acted as the General, was extremely polite, and attentive, and came to us between every evolution, to explain and talk over the manoeuvres.
    1779, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 117
  2. (chiefly dance, sports) A turning movement, especially of the body.
    Quotations
    Our necromancer […] taking up his wand, waved it around his head in a very mysterious motion, with a view of intimidating these forward visitants, who, far from being awed by this sort of evolution, became more and more obstreperous […] .
    1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […]
    It was a critical instant: the pirouette -- it would fail, she feared. … the rapid whirl achieved in exact time, the whole evolution executed to perfection.
    1869, anonymous author, Miss Langley's Will
    … as he beheld the tenfold pirouette of a lovely girl, which presented to the public eye the whole of her form and figure; … to praise the dexterity and ease with which the unfortunate and degraded creature had performed the ungraceful evolution, the only merit of which, is the gross exposition of person, at which modesty shudders […]
    1825, Theodore Edward Hook, Sayings and Doings: Passion and principle
    "Look now, that pirouette -- my stars! how Beauchamp would stare to see his darling perform such an evolution!"
    1863, Knightley Willia Horlock, The master of the hounds
    By this operation each foot will describe an arc or segment of a circle. … This evolution is performed sometimes on one foot, sometimes on the other …
    1869, William Clarke, The boy's own book
  3. (obsolete) A turned or twisted shape; an involution, a complex or intricate shape.
    Quotations
    ‘It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crouded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.’
    1791, James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 298
2. An unfolding.
  1. (now rare) The act or process of unfolding or opening out; the progression of events in regular succession.
    Quotations
    The world […] might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings […] rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat.
    1794–1796, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […]
  2. (geometry) The opening out of a curve; now more generally, the gradual transformation of a curve by a change of the conditions generating it.
  3. (mathematics, now chiefly historical) The extraction of a root from a given power.
  4. (chemistry) The act or an instance of giving off gas; emission.
3. Process of development.
  1. Development; the act or result of developing what was implicit in an idea, argument etc.
    Quotations
    Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
    2005, Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
  2. A process of gradual change in a given system, subject, product etc., especially from simpler to more complex forms.
    Quotations
    By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.
    1922, Ben Travers, chapter 4, in A Cuckoo in the Nest‎
    There are some examples of cultural evolution in birds and monkeys, but […] it is our own species that really shows what cultural evolution can do.
    1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
  3. (biology) The transformation of animals, plants and other living things into different forms (now understood as a change in genetic composition) by the accumulation of changes over successive generations.
    Quotations
    […] and thus he [Lamarck] was inclined to assert the priority of the types of marine animals to those of the terrestrial, and to fancy, for example, that the testacea of the ocean existed first, until some of them, by gradual evolution, were improved into those inhabiting the land.
    1832, Charles Lyell, chapter I, in Principles of Geology […] , volume II, London: John Murray, page 11
    [Some books have] made the erroneous assumption that the important thing in evolution is the good of the species (or the group) rather than the good of the individual (or the gene).
    1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
    Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction.
    2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3