develop
v.v. to grow, change, or become more advanced over time. It can also mean to create something new, like a plan or a product, by working on it step by step.
v. to grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate.
Children develop quickly during their first few years.
The city council wants to develop the empty land near the river into a public park with walking trails.
As the plot of the novel unfolds, the protagonist develops from a naive youth into a cynical observer, reflecting the author's own disillusionment with society.
Borrowed from French développer, from Middle French desveloper, from Old French desveloper, from des- + voloper, veloper, vloper (“to wrap, wrap up”) (compare Italian sviluppare, Old Italian alternative form goluppare (“to wrap”)) from Vulgar Latin vloppō, wloppō (“to wrap”) ultimately from Proto-Germanic wrappaną, wlappaną (“to wrap, roll up, turn, wind”), from Proto-Indo-European *werb- (“to turn, bend”) http://www.wordnik.com/words/envelop. Akin to Middle English wlappen (“to wrap, fold”) (Modern English lap (“to wrap, involve, fold”)), Middle English wrappen (“to wrap”), Middle Dutch lappen (“to wrap up, embrace”), dialectal Danish vravle (“to wind, twist”), Middle Low German wrempen (“to wrinkle, scrunch, distort”), Old English wearp (“warp”). The word acquired its modern meaning from the 17th-century belief that an egg contains the animal in miniature and matures by growing larger and shedding its envelopes.
The verb functions both transitively, taking a direct object when creating or improving something, and intransitively when describing natural progression.