from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
intransitive verb To pass on or delegate to another.
intransitive verb Archaic To cause to roll onward or downward.
intransitive verb To be passed on or transferred to another.
intransitive verb To degenerate or deteriorate gradually.
intransitive verb Archaic To roll onward or downward.
from The Century Dictionary.
To roll downward or onward.
To transfer, as from one person to another; turn over; transmit.
To roll down; come or arrive by rolling down or onward.
To be transferred or transmitted; pass from one to another; fall by succession or transference.
To degenerate.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
intransitive verb To pass by transmission or succession; to be handed over or down; -- generally with on or upon, sometimes with to or into.
transitive verb To roll onward or downward; to pass on.
transitive verb To transfer from one person to another; to deliver over; to hand down; -- generally with upon, sometimes with to or into.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
verb transitive to delegate something to someone else
verb intransitive to be inherited by someone; to come into the hands of
verb intransitive to slowly degrade
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
verb grow worse
verb be inherited by
verb pass on or delegate to another
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Middle English devolven, to transfer, from Old French devolver, to confer, ascribe, from Latin dēvolvere, to roll down, fall to : dē-, de- + volvere, to roll; see wel- in Indo-European roots.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Latin dēvolvō ("roll or tumble off or down"), from dē + volvō ("roll").
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Examples
He didn't use the word devolve'' and he's coming off a heroic performance in Detroit, but that's the deal.
Will a new McCarthyism devolve from the current "Tea-Party" movement that exists only to attempt to deny the fact that Barack Obama is in fact a United States Citizen and has legitimately been elected President of all Americans?
"I don't mean to have this call devolve into a 'relationship' call," Davis said, before leading the pack of journalists down precisely that trail -- bringing up (and distorting) Obama's description of Bill Ayers as "just one of my friends in the neighborhood."
"I don't mean to have this call devolve into a 'relationship' call," Davis said, before leading the pack of journalists down precisely that trail -- bringing up (and distorting) Obama's description of Bill Ayers as "just one of my friends in the neighborhood."
"I don't mean to have this call devolve into a 'relationship' call," Davis said, before leading the pack of journalists down precisely that trail -- bringing up and distorting Obama's description of Bill Ayers as "just one of my friends in the neighborhood."
You know, we've seen instances of people, you know, handing out food or handing out bottles of water, and all of a sudden, it can very quickly kind of devolve into something else.
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