evolutionary
Americanadjective
-
pertaining to evolution or development; developmental.
the evolutionary origin of species.
-
of, relating to, or in accordance with a theory of evolution, especially in biology.
-
pertaining to or performing evolutions.
Other Word Forms
- antievolutionary adjective
- evolutionarily adverb
- nonevolutionary adjective
- preevolutionary adjective
- proevolutionary adjective
- unevolutionary adjective
Etymology
Origin of evolutionary
Explanation
Evolutionary things have to do with how animals (or other things) change over time — this process of change is called evolution. Scientists that study living things are interested in evolutionary changes in form or behavior. It's not always easy to put the evolutionary pieces together, and scientists often have to rely on fossils to tell the whole story of evolution. Usually, evolutionary changes happen because they help the organism survive and reproduce. Many evolutionary questions are non-physical: How did the domestication of dogs change the behavior of canines from an evolutionary standpoint? When you see the word evolutionary, think "change."
Vocabulary lists containing evolutionary
Evolutionary BIology - Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity - Middle School
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Evolutionary BIology - Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity - High School
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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It adds an important piece to the evolutionary history of one of Earth's earliest animals and offers an explanation for why older fossils have been so difficult to find.
From Science Daily • Apr. 15, 2026
A chunk of bone discovered on a beach by a schoolgirl could be up to half a million years old, according to an evolutionary biologist.
From BBC • Apr. 10, 2026
The findings help answer a long-standing question in evolutionary biology.
From Science Daily • Apr. 6, 2026
"This tells us that by the mid-Cambrian, when evolutionary rates were remarkably high, the oceans were already inhabited by arthropods with anatomical complexity rivaling modern forms," Ortega-Hernández added.
From Science Daily • Apr. 3, 2026
Because he lived before Darwin, his speculations about extraterrestrial life are innocent of the evolutionary perspective.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
