develop
verb
Simple meaning
To grow, progress, or unfold through a process of change
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihvehluhpSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈvɛləp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
ambitransitive
Grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment
“A flower developed on the branch.”
ambitransitive
To progress through a sequence of stages.
transitive
To advance; to further; to promote the growth of.
intransitive
To change with a specific direction, progress.
Create by training and teaching
transitive
To acquire something usually over a period of time.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment
Used this way, develop is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“A flower developed on the branch.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “develop on …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: develop on …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use develop
- “Her company developed a new kind of building material that withstands all kinds of weather.”verb
- “Could you develop the ideas in your thesis.”verb
- “A flower developed on the branch.”verb
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Being changed over time so as to be e.g. stronger or more complete or more useful.
Processing a photosensitive material in order to make an image visible.
Someone who develops real estate (especially someone who prepares a site for residential or commercial use).
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A country that is poor and whose citizens are mostly agricultural workers but that wants to become more advanced socially and economically.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A United Nations agency created to assist developing nations by loans guaranteed by member governments.
Improving an existing product or developing new kinds of products.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.