Definition of "evolve"

(transitive)

1. To move (something) in regular procession through a system.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The animal soul sooner expands and evolves it self to its full orb and extent than the humane Soul

     a. 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677

2. To change or transform (something).  examples

3. To cause (something) to come into being or develop.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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.

     1939, P. G. Wodehouse, Uncle Fred in the Springtime

   • […] I ask you, rather, to evolve a suitable plan with due deliberation and report it to me."14

     2005, Donald Keene, quoting Emperor Kōmei, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His world, 1852–1912‎, New York: Columbia University Press, chapter 9, page 78

4. (biology)

   1. Of a population: to acquire or develop (a trait) in the process of biological evolution.  quotations  examples

      Quotations

      • 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.

        2013 September-October, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist‎, archived from the original on 3 September 2013

   2. (chiefly passive voice) To cause (a population, a species, etc.) to change genetic composition over successive generations through the process of evolution.  quotations  examples

      Quotations

      • 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.

        1859 November 24, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, […], London: John Murray, […], page 502

      • The ice age was nearly two million years old by the time the woolly mammoth evolved.

        2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 204

5. (chemistry) To give off (a gas such as carbon dioxide or oxygen) during a chemical reaction.  examples

6. (obsolete) To wind or unwind (something).  quotations

   Quotations

   • 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— […]

     , James Woodhouse, “[To William Shenstone, Esq. in His Sickness.] Elegy VI. To a Lady, on the Language of the Birds.”, in William Shenstone, The Poetical Works of William Shenstone. […], Cooke’s edition, London: […] C. Cooke, […], page 54, lines 9–12

(intransitive)

1. To move in regular procession through a system.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • [T]he principles which Art involves, Science alone evolves.

     1840, William Whewell, “Of Art and Science”, in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […]; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: J. and J. J. Deighton, part II (Of Knowledge), book XI (Of the Construction of Science), paragraph 6, page 275

   • Not by any power evolved from man's own resources, but by a power which descended from above.

     1870, John Shairp, Culture and Religion

2. To change, to transform.  examples

3. (biology) Of a trait; to develop within a population through biological evolution.