evolve
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "evolve", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "evolve" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "evolve" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
evolve is aEnglishverb. It means: To move (something) in regular procession through a system. Pronounced /ɪˈvɒlv/. It ranks #9,604 in English word frequency. Often confused with evoke.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | evolve |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɪˈvɒlv/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #9,604 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for evolve is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪˈvɒlv/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,604 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for evolve, with forms such as "eovlve", "evlove", and "evolev". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "evoke", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin ēvolvō (“unroll, unfold”), from ē- (“out of”) (short form of ex) + volvō (“roll”). Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is evolve, spelled E-V-O-L-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To move (something) in regular procession through a system.
- 2To change or transform (something).
- 3To cause (something) to come into being or develop.
- 4Of a population: to acquire or develop (a trait) in the process of biological evolution.
- 5To cause (a population, a species, etc.) to change genetic composition over successive generations through the process of evolution.
- 6To give off (a gas such as carbon dioxide or oxygen) during a chemical reaction.
- 7To wind or unwind (something).
- 8To move in regular procession through a system.
- 9To change, to transform.
- 10Of a trait; to develop within a population through biological evolution.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin ēvolvō (“unroll, unfold”), from ē- (“out of”) (short form of ex) + volvō (“roll”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eovlve,evlove,evolev,evollve,evolvve,evovle,evvolve,veolve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for evolve
Misspelling Variants of "evolve"
Frequency rank: #9,604 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: