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Devolve vs Transfer - What's the difference?

devolve | transfer |

In intransitive terms the difference between devolve and transfer

is that devolve is to degenerate; to break down while transfer is to be or become transferred.

In transitive terms the difference between devolve and transfer

is that devolve is to delegate (a responsibility, duty etc.) {{term|on}} or {{term|upon}} someone while transfer is to convey the impression of (something) from one surface to another.

As verbs the difference between devolve and transfer

is that devolve is to roll (something) down; to unroll while transfer is to move or pass from one place, person or thing to another.

As a noun transfer is

the act of conveying or removing something from one place, person or thing to another.

devolve

English

Verb

(en-verb)
  • (obsolete) To roll (something) down; to unroll.
  • * 1744 , (Mark Akenside), The Pleasures of the Imagination , II:
  • every headlong stream / Devolves its winding waters to the main.
  • * 1830 , , Character :
  • He spake of virtue […] And with […] a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, Devolved his rounded periods.
  • To be inherited by someone else; to pass down (upon) the next person in a succession, especially through failure or loss of an earlier holder.
  • * 1932 , (Duff Cooper), Talleyrand , Folio Society 2010, p. 4:
  • an accident […] rendered him permanently lame, and therefore unfitted him, in the opinion of his parents, to inherit his father's many titles, which, it was then arranged, should devolve upon his younger brother.
  • To delegate (a responsibility, duty etc.) (on) or (upon) someone.
  • * 1704 , (Joseph Addison), Remarks on Several Parts of Italy :
  • They devolved their whole authority into the hands of the council of sixty.
  • * 1756 , (Edmund Burke), A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful :
  • An artful man became popular, the people had power in their hands, and they devolved a considerable share of their power upon their favourite […].
  • To fall as a duty or responsibility (on) or (upon) someone.
  • * , Episode 16:
  • For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned.
  • To degenerate; to break down.
  • A discussion about politics may devolve into a shouting match.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    transfer

    Verb

    (transferr)
  • To move or pass from one place, person or thing to another.
  • to transfer''' the laws of one country to another; to '''transfer suspicion
  • To convey the impression of (something) from one surface to another.
  • to transfer drawings or engravings to a lithographic stone
  • To be or become transferred.
  • (legal) To arrange for something to belong to or be officially controlled by somebody else.
  • The title to land is transferred by deed.

    Synonyms

    * carry over, move, onpass * (convey impression of from one surface to another) copy, transpose * (to be or become transferred)

    Derived terms

    * transferee * transferor

    Noun

  • (uncountable) The act of conveying or removing something from one place, person or thing to another.
  • (countable) An instance of conveying or removing from one place, person or thing to another; a transferal.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=An internet of airborne things, date=2012-12-01, volume=405, issue=8813, page=3 (Technology Quarterly), magazine= citation
  • , passage=A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer . A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone.}}
  • (countable) A design conveyed by contact from one surface to another; a heat transfer.
  • A soldier removed from one troop, or body of troops, and placed in another.
  • (medicine) A pathological process by which a unilateral morbid condition on being abolished on one side of the body makes its appearance in the corresponding region upon the other side.
  • Synonyms

    * (act) transferal, transference * (instance) transferal

    Usage notes

    * In the United Kingdom education system the noun is used to define a move from one school to another, for example from primary school to secondary school. Contrast with transition which is used to define any move within or between schools, for example, a move from one year group to the next.