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1. Make something new, such as a product or a mental or artistic creation
   "Her company developed a new kind of building material that withstands all kinds of weather"; "They developed a new technique"
    
2. Start and work to gradually produce or understand
   "We have developed a new theory of evolution";
   - evolve, germinate
    
3. Gain through experience
   "Children must develop a sense of right and wrong"; "Dave developed leadership qualities in his new position"; "develop a passion for painting";
   - acquire, evolve
    
4. Come to have or undergo a change of (physical features and attributes)
   "The patient developed abdominal pains"; "Well-developed breasts";
   - grow, produce, get, acquire
    
5. Come into existence; take on form or shape
   "A new religious movement developed in that country";
   - originate, arise, rise, uprise, spring up, grow
    
6. Change the use of and make available or usable
   "develop land"; "The country developed its natural resources";
   - build up
    
7. Elaborate, as of theories and hypotheses
   "Could you develop the ideas in your thesis";
   - explicate, formulate
    
8. Create by training and teaching
   "we develop the leaders for the future";
   - train, prepare, educate
    
9. Be gradually disclosed or unfolded; become manifest
   "The plot developed slowly"
    
10. Grow, progress, unfold, or evolve through a process of evolution, natural growth, differentiation, or a conducive environment
    "A flower developed on the branch"; "The country developed into a mighty superpower"; "The embryo develops into a foetus"; "This situation has developed over a long time"
     
11. Become technologically advanced
    "Many countries in Asia are now developing at a very fast pace";
    - modernize, modernise [Brit]
     
12. Cause to grow and differentiate in ways conforming to its natural development
    "The perfect climate here develops the grain"; "He developed a new kind of apple";
    - make grow
     
13. Generate gradually
    "We must develop more potential customers"; "develop a market for the new mobile phone"
     
14. Grow emotionally or mature
    "The child developed beautifully in her new kindergarten";
    - grow
     
15. (photography) make visible by means of chemical solutions
    "Please develop this roll of film for me"
     
16. Superimpose a three-dimensional surface on a plane without stretching, in geometry
     
17. (chess) move one's pieces into strategically more advantageous positions
    "Spassky developed quickly"
     
18. (chess) move into a strategically more advantageous position
    "develop the rook"
     
19. Elaborate by the unfolding of a musical idea and by the working out of the rhythmic and harmonic changes in the theme
    "develop the melody and change the key"
     
20. Happen
    "Report the news as it develops";
    - break, recrudesce
     
21. (mathematics) expand in the form of a series
    "Develop the function in the following form"

Derived forms: developed, developing, develops

Type of: alter, ameliorate, amend, become, better, bring forth, change, come about, complicate, conjecture, create, create by mental act, create mentally, elaborate, expand, fall out, generate, go on, grow, hap [archaic], happen, hypothecate, hypothesise [Brit], hypothesize, improve, instruct, lay over, learn, meliorate, mend, modify, occur, pass, pass off, play, rarefy, rarify [rare], refine, speculate, superimpose, superpose, suppose, take place, teach, theorise [Brit], theorize

Encyclopedia: Develop