Development \De*vel"op*ment\, n. [Cf. F. d['e]veloppement.]
   [Written also developement.]
   1. The act of developing or disclosing that which is unknown;
      a gradual unfolding process by which anything is
      developed, as a plan or method, or an image upon a
      photographic plate; gradual advancement or growth through
      a series of progressive changes; also, the result of
      developing, or a developed state.
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            A new development of imagination, taste, and poetry.
                                                  --Channing.
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   2. (Biol.) The series of changes which animal and vegetable
      organisms undergo in their passage from the embryonic
      state to maturity, from a lower to a higher state of
      organization.
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   3. (Math.)
      (a) The act or process of changing or expanding an
          expression into another of equivalent value or
          meaning.
      (b) The equivalent expression into which another has been
          developed.
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   4. (Mus.) The elaboration of a theme or subject; the
      unfolding of a musical idea; the evolution of a whole
      piece or movement from a leading theme or motive.
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   5. A tract of land on which a number of buildings have been
      constructed; -- especially used for tract on which from
      two to hundreds of houses have been constructed by a
      commercial developer[4] for sale to individuals.
      [PJC]

   Development theory (Biol.), the doctrine that animals and
      plants possess the power of passing by slow and successive
      stages from a lower to a higher state of organization, and
      that all the higher forms of life now in existence were
      thus developed by uniform laws from lower forms, and are
      not the result of special creative acts. See the Note
      under Darwinian.

   Syn: Unfolding; disclosure; unraveling; evolution;
        elaboration; growth.
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