Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-62.255.98.169-20130504143516/@comment-7153552-20130516210146

Devolution: the act or fact of devolving; another word for degeneration; past participle of 'devolve'

Devolve: to roll down or cause to roll down

De-:  A prefix used to show removal, seperation or negation

Thus we can see that "de-" plus "evolve", using the basic grammar and spelling rules you learn in grade school, creat the wrod devolve, and the act of devolving is devolution. All of which are real words by themselve and through contextual clues one can dictate what they mean in the given sentence. As words in the Enlgish language can change purpose based on situation (which is why every other language group hates learning ours!).