Search the Dictionary

The theory that living organisms can be produced only by the development of living germs. Cf. Biogenesis, Abiogenesis.

ocess of germinating; the beginning of vegetation or growth in a seed or plant; the first development of germs, either animal or vegetable. Germination apparatus, an apparatus for malting grain.

The process of growing; the gradual increase of an animal or a vegetable body; the development from a seed, germ, or root, to full size or maturity; increase in size, number, frequency, strength, etc.; augmentation; advancement; production; prevalence or influence; as, the growth of trade; the growth of power; the grow…

corpuscles; a third kind of blood corpuscle, supposed by some to be an early stage in the development of the red corpuscles; -- called also blood plaque, and blood plate.

The origin and development of blood.

The lower group of the Wealden formation; -- so called from its development around Hastings, in Sussex, England.

Development; disclosure; discovery. Shak.

To grow warm or hot by fermentation, or the development of heat by chemical action; as, green hay heats in a mow, and manure in the dunghill.

Unequal development of the tail lobes of fishes; the possession of a heterocercal tail.

The formation and development of organic tissues; histogeny; -- the opposite of histolysis.

Tissue-producing; connected with the formation and development of the organic tissues.

The science which treats of the laws relating to organic tissues, their formation, development, functions, etc.

A morphological term signifying development, in the case of multicellular organisms, from the same unit deme or unit of the inferior orders of individuality.

A place which favors rapid growth or development; as, a hotbed of sedition.

The pellucid substance, present in cells in process of development, from which, according to some embryologists, the cell nucleous originates.

A condition of overgrowth or excessive development of an organ or part; -- the opposite of atrophy.

r doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development. That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one. Johnson. What is now "idea" for us How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly-…

A human being destitute of the ordinary intellectual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth; a natural fool; a natural; an innocent. Life . . . is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Shak.

Not mature; unripe; not arrived at perfection of full development; crude; unfinished; as, immature fruit; immature character; immature plans. "An ill-measured and immature counsel." Bacon.

The development of a disease from its causes, or its period of incubation. (See below.)