Definition
verbTo discover, find out; to uncover.
verbTo change with a specific direction, progress.
Sentence Examples
Blind people sometimes develop a compensatory ability to sense the proximity of objects around them.
Why didn't modern technology develop in China?
Researchers around the world are collaborating to develop a new vaccine.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French développer, from Middle French desveloper, from Old French desveloper, from des- + voloper, veloper, vloper (“to wrap, wrap up”) (compare Italian sviluppare, Old Italian alternative form goluppare (“to wrap”)) from Vulgar Latin *vloppō, *wloppō (“to wrap”) ultimately from Proto-Germanic *wrappaną, *wlappaną (“to wrap, roll up, turn, wind”), from Proto-Indo-European *werb- (“to turn, bend”) http://www.wordnik.com/words/envelop.
Akin to Middle English wlappen (“to wrap, fold”) (Modern English lap (“to wrap, involve, fold”)), Middle English wrappen (“to wrap”), Middle Dutch lappen (“to wrap up, embrace”), dialectal Danish vravle (“to wind, twist”), Middle Low German wrempen (“to wrinkle, scrunch, distort”), Old English wearp (“warp”). The word acquired its modern meaning from the 17th-century belief that an egg contains the animal in miniature and matures by growing larger and shedding its envelopes.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"‘The mystery which I cannot develop, may by that time be removed […].’"
— 1791, Charlotte Smith, Celestina, Broadview, published 2004, page 176:
"The plaintiff's case on liability was pretty solid. One of the herbal ingredients in Vita-Pote turned out to have a well-recognized association with temporary impotence.
When it developed that the defendant had never really investigated what the ingredients in Vita-Pote could do to men, the local legal pundits started saying there was no way the plaintiff could lose."
— 1999 September 1, Jim McElhaney, ABA Journal, volume 94, number 2, published 1 February 2008, page 24a:
"We must develop our own resources to the utmost."
— 1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides:
"Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.[…]A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale."
— 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist: