DEVOLUTION • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Devolution

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noun

Devolution n.

The act of rolling down. (R.) "The devolution of earth down upon the valleys."

Transference from one person to another; a passing or devolving upon a successor. "The devolution of the crown through a... channel known and conformable to old constitutional requisitions."

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Etymology of 'Devolution'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Devolution" Quotes from Famous Books

... learning, and made a wide opening which gave opportunity for the elevation of a vernacular literature. There is no part of Anglo-Saxon literature more characterised by spontaneity than are the Saxon Chronicles. Nowhere can we better see how the mother-tongue received the devolution of the literary office in an unexpected way when the learned literature was suddenly and ...

— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... these advanced souls view the degeneracies of "civilized" life that they feel sorrow and pain. For here they see instances of devolution instead of evolution—degeneration instead of regeneration and advancement. And not only do they know this to be the fact, but the degenerate specimens of mankind themselves feel and know it. Compare the expression of the animal or savage going through their natural ...

— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... son of an earl, were playing on the front staircase of their home, when the eldest fell over into the hall below. The younger called to the footman who picked his brother up, "Is he hurt?" "Killed, my lord," was the instantanteous reply of a servant who knew the devolution of ...

— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... (M547) Testamentary devolution of property was not the rule in Assyria or Babylonia, where the law of inheritance was so firmly fixed that it would be naturally illegal. As a rule, children did not inherit under their fathers' ...

— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... the proprietary rights themselves. And every student of technical jurisprudence must have come across the same view, clothed in the language of a rather different school, which, in its rationale of this department of law, treats succession ex testamento as the mode of devolution which the property of deceased persons ought primarily to follow, and then proceeds to account for succession ab intestato as the incidental provision of the lawgiver for the discharge of a function which was only left unperformed through the neglect or misfortune of the deceased ...

— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... trust reposed in them: for when such trust is abused, it is thereby forfeited, and devolves to those who gave it." But however just this conclusion may be in theory, we cannot adopt it, nor argue from it, under any dispensation of government at present actually existing. For this devolution of power, to the people at large, includes in it a dissolution of the whole form of government established by that people, reduces all the members to their original state of equality, and by annihilating the sovereign power repeals all ...

— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

Words linked to "Devolution" : relegation, government, degeneration, attack, governing, relegating, delegating, delegation, devolve, devolvement, process, government activity, obsolescence, governance, deputation, macular degeneration