evolution: [17] Evolution originally meant simply ‘unfolding’, or metaphorically ‘development’; it was not used in its main current sense, ‘gradual change in form of a species over the centuries’, until the early 19th century. The Scottish geologist Charles Lyell appears to have been the first to do so, in his Principles of Geology 1832, and it was subsequently taken up by Charles Darwin.
The word comes from Latin ēvolūtiō, which denoted specifically the unrolling of a papyrus or parchment roll. It was a derivative of ēvolvere, a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and volvere ‘roll’ (source also of English convolution, involve, and revolve and related to vault, voluble, volume, vulva, and wallow). => convolution, involve, revolve, volume, wallow
1620s, "an opening of what was rolled up," from Latin evolutionem (nominative evolutio) "unrolling (of a book)," noun of action from past participle stem of evolvere "to unroll" (see evolve).
Used in medicine, mathematics, and general writing in various senses including "growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing" (1660s). Modern use in biology, of species, first attested 1832 in works of Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. Charles Darwin used the word in print once only, in the closing paragraph of "The Origin of Species" (1859), and preferred descent with modification, in part because evolution already had been used in the discarded 18c. homunculus theory of embryological development (first proposed under this name by Bonnet, 1762) and in part because it carried a sense of "progress" not present in Darwin's idea. But Victorian belief in progress prevailed (and the advantages of brevity), and Herbert Spencer and other biologists after Darwin popularized evolution.
双语例句
1. the evolution of the human species
人类的进化
来自《权威词典》
2. It has passed through an interesting procedure of evolution.
它经过了一个有趣的进化过程.
来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
3. The space program is the evolution of years of research.
太空计划是多年研究的发展结果.
来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
4. The evolution of heat from the sun is inestimable.
从太阳中放射出的热是无法估计的.
来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
5. A cultural and social evolution now becomes rapid.
