develop

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