Etymologically
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evolution

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 02:32. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən/, /ˌev.əˈluː.ʃən/, US /ˌev.əˈluː.ʃən/, /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ēvolūtiō (“unrolling of a book”),[2][3][4] from ēvolvere (“to unroll”), from ē- (“out”) and volvere (“to roll”).[2][3] It is related to evolve and revolution.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The opening of what was rolled up: the 1620s in Etymonline.[2] SOED's first sense, of the early 17th century, is a movement of troops or ships to change their formation.[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It was used in medicine, mathematics and general writing in various senses,[2] including the extraction of roots in algebra (1706)[6] and the growth to maturity of an individual living thing (1660s).[2] The working out in detail of something implicit is from 1677.[6] The modern biological use, of species, is first attested in 1832 in the works of the geologist Charles Lyell.[2] Darwin used the word in print only once, at the end of The Origin of Species (1859), and preferred descent with modification, partly because evolution had been used for the discarded 18th-century homunculus theory of embryos and partly because it suggested progress.[2] Herbert Spencer and other biologists after Darwin made the word popular.[2]

Timeline

  • 1620s – an unrolling.[2]
  • 1660s – growth of an individual.[2]
  • 1706 – extraction of roots.[6]
  • 1832 – of species, in Lyell.[2]
  • 1859 – once in Darwin's Origin of Species.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (biology) The gradual change in living things over many generations, by which new species develop from earlier ones.
  2. A gradual development, especially into a more complex form.
  3. A movement of troops, ships or dancers that is part of a set pattern.
  4. The giving off of gas, heat or light.

Word family

  • evolutional
  • evolutionarily
  • evolutionary
  • evolutionism
  • evolutionist
  • evolutionally
  • coevolution
  • macroevolution

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press