Learn English – Did the word “evolution” exist before Darwinism

etymology

I was talking about evolution with my friends and one of them said:

The word "evolution" joined the English vocabulary after Darwin used it. The word itself is pretty new, therefore.

Is that true or did the word have a very long origin before Darwin?

Best Answer

Use etymonline.com to look up evolution and you'll find that yes, "the word had a very long origin way before Darwin":

1620s, "an opening of what was rolled up," from L. evolutionem (nom. evolutio) "unrolling (of a book)," noun of action from evolvere (see evolve). Used in various senses in medicine, mathematics, and general use, including "growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing" (1660s). Modern use in biology, of species, first attested 1832 by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. Charles Darwin used the word only once, in the closing paragraph of "The Origin of Species" (1859), and preferred descent with modification, in part because evolution already had been used in the 18c. homunculus theory of embryological development (first proposed under this name by Bonnet, 1762), in part because it carried a sense of "progress" not found in Darwin's idea. But Victorian belief in progress prevailed (along with brevity), and Herbert Spencer and other biologists popularized evolution.

Related Topic