Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To bring from latency to or toward fulfillment: an instructor who develops the capabilities of each student.
- transitive v. To expand or enlarge: developed a national corporation into a worldwide business.
- transitive v. To aid in the growth of; strengthen: exercises that develop muscles.
- transitive v. To improve the quality of; refine: develops his recipes to perfection; an extra year of study to develop virtuosic technique.
- transitive v. To cause to become more complex or intricate; add detail and fullness to; elaborate: began with a good premise but developed it without imagination.
- transitive v. Music To elaborate (a theme) with rhythmic and harmonic variations.
- transitive v. To bring into being gradually: develop a new cottage industry.
- transitive v. To set forth or clarify by degrees: developed her thesis in a series of articles.
- transitive v. To come to have gradually; acquire: develop a taste for opera; develop a friendship.
- transitive v. To become affected with; contract; developed a rash; developed agoraphobia.
- transitive v. To cause gradually to acquire a specific role, function, or form, as:
- transitive v. To influence the behavior of toward a specific end: an investigator who develops witnesses through flattery and intimidation.
- transitive v. To cause (a tract of land) to serve a particular purpose: developed the site as a community of condominiums.
- transitive v. To make available and effective to fulfill a particular end or need: develop the state's water resources to serve a growing population.
- transitive v. To convert or transform: developed the play into a movie.
- transitive v. Games To move (a chess piece) to or toward a more strategic position.
- transitive v. To process (a photosensitive material), especially with chemicals, in order to render a recorded image visible.
- transitive v. To render (an image) visible by this means.
- intransitive v. To grow by degrees into a more advanced or mature state: With hard work, she developed into a great writer. See Synonyms at mature.
- intransitive v. To increase or expand.
- intransitive v. To improve; advance: Their skill developed until it rivaled their teacher's.
- intransitive v. To come gradually into existence or activity: Tension developed between students and faculty.
- intransitive v. To come gradually to light; be disclosed: reports the news as it develops.
- intransitive v. Biology To progress from earlier to later stages of a life cycle: Caterpillars develop into butterflies.
- intransitive v. Biology To progress from earlier to later or from simpler to more complex stages of evolution.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To change with a specific direction, progress.
- v. To progress through a sequence of stages.
- v. To create.
- v. To bring out images latent in photographic film.
- v. To acquire something usually over a peroid of time
- v. To place one's pieces actively.
- v. To cause a ball to become more open and available to be played on later. Usually by moving it away from the cushion, or by opening a pack.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- intransitive v. To go through a process of natural evolution or growth, by successive changes from a less perfect to a more perfect or more highly organized state; to advance from a simpler form of existence to one more complex either in structure or function
- intransitive v. To become apparent gradually
- transitive v. To free from that which infolds or envelops; to unfold; to lay open by degrees or in detail; to make visible or known; to disclose; to produce or give forth
- transitive v. To unfold gradually, as a flower from a bud; hence, to bring through a succession of states or stages, each of which is preparatory to the next; to form or expand by a process of growth; to cause to change gradually from an embryo, or a lower state, to a higher state or form of being
- transitive v. To advance; to further; to prefect; to make to increase; to promote the growth of.
- transitive v. To change the form of, as of an algebraic expression, by executing certain indicated operations without changing the value.
- transitive v. To cause to become visible, as an invisible or latent image upon plate, by submitting it to chemical agents; to bring to view.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To uncover or unfold gradually; lay open by successive steps; disclose or mate known in detail, as something not apparent or withheld from notice; bring or work out in full: as, the general began to develop the plan of his operations; to develop a plot; to develop an idea.
- In photography, to induce the chemical changes in (the film of a plate which has been exposed in the camera or of a gelatino-bromide print) necessary to cause a latent image or picture to become visible, and, in the ease of a negative, to assume proper density to admit of reproduction by a process of printing.
- In biology, to cause to go through the process of natural evolution from a previous and lower stage, or from un embryonic state to a later and more complex or perfect one.
- In mathematics:
- To advance from one stage to another by a process of natural or inherent evolution; specifically, in biology, to pass from the lowest stage through others of greater maturity toward the perfect or finished state: as, the fetus develops in the womb; the seed develops into the plant.
- To become apparent; show itself: as, his schemes developed at length; specifically, in photography, to become visible, as a picture under the process of development. See development
- In biology, to evolve; accomplish an evolutionary process or result.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. move into a strategically more advantageous position
- v. cause to grow and differentiate in ways conforming to its natural development
- v. generate gradually
- v. come into existence; take on form or shape
- v. become technologically advanced
- v. come to have or undergo a change of (physical features and attributes)
- v. create by training and teaching
- v. grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment
- v. expand in the form of a series
- v. superimpose a three-dimensional surface on a plane without stretching, in geometry
- v. happen
- v. work out
- v. make visible by means of chemical solutions
- v. change the use of and make available or usable
- v. grow emotionally or mature
- v. be gradually disclosed or unfolded; become manifest
- v. gain through experience
- v. move one's pieces into strategically more advantageous positions
- v. make something new, such as a product or a mental or artistic creation
- v. elaborate by the unfolding of a musical idea and by the working out of the rhythmic and harmonic changes in the theme
- v. elaborate, as of theories and hypotheses
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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Pulping seems like an incentive to too much turnover of stock and a disincentive to let a title develop a following before it's replaced with the next hopeful big hit.
Making Light: A music exec's take on the Macmillan/Amazon throwdown
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The Itahari-based Swagat Tol Bikas Sanstha (STBS) today honoured the elderly to what it calls develop positive and respectful attitude towards them, to mark its fourth anniversary.
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A sperm cell has no individual identity - a human being cannot develop from a sperm cell, and its genetic information can make a contribution to the identity of a person only in the presence of an egg cell.
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Though tornadoes did not materialize overnight, the atmosphere remains humid and unstable and thunderstorms capable of rotating may once again develop this afternoon.
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Can Club Penguin develop the communication skills of kids shy in real-life?
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Familial adenomatous polyposisis characterized by the presence of gastrointestinal polyps, abnormal tissue growths that develop from the lining of the large and small intestines, and less commonly, the stomach.
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Retinoblasts develop from a single cell during the early development of an infant in the womb.
Retinoblastoma - Diagnosing and Treating Retinoblastoma in Children
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In Connecticut Yankee, time travel lets Twain develop bitingly satirical comparisons between fifth-century England and nineteenth-century New England.
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So one opportunity that could develop from the above would be better systems to supply to demand.
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Special Interests develop from the same source as Public beliefs.
Meeting the Enemy, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
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