devolution

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devolution

n. the transfer of rights, powers, or an office (public or private) from one person or government to another. (See: devolve)

devolution

noun assignment, bequeathal, bequest, change of hands, conveyance, delegation, delegation of duties, deliverance, delivery, demise, devise, interchange, nonretention, reversion, substitution, succession, succession of property rights, transfer, transfer of property, transference, transmission
Associated concepts: devolution of liability, devolution of property
See also: assignment, conveyance, delegation, deputation, succession

devolution

1 the transmission ofan interest in property from one person to another by operation of law.
2 in constitutional law, the giving of a degree of power, functional, sectional or geographic, to an inferior body. A recent legal model appeared in the Scotland Act 1998.

DEVOLUTION, eccl. law. The transfer, by forfeiture, of a right and power which a person has to another, on account of some act or negligence of the person who is vested with such right or power: for example, when a person has the right of preseptation, and he does not present within the time prescribed, the right devolves on his next immediate superior. Ayl. Par. 331.

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References in periodicals archive ?
Nerval marks the evolution of storytelling topoi by imposing on Sylvie the same silences that contemporary devolutionary discourses prescribe to storytelling.
Literature and the death of folklore: in and around Nerval's Sylvie
Those advocating a devolutionary agenda tend to answer this question in the affirmative.
The promises and pitfalls of devolution: water pollution policies in the American States
And that's the second point, which is that this issue has for all intents and purposes been captured by the devolutionary forces of American politics, who treat all matters relating to education as sacred states' rights turf.
Fighting Chance
Although the book covers an impressive sweep of time, Lofgren cautions against the sort of longue-duree catch-all narrative that "fall[s] into evolutionary or devolutionary traps, like 'from the Grand Tour to Europe on $5 a day.
Round the World in 80 Ways
On the other hand, there are a few true believers like Voinovich, who has established himself in his first year in Washington as the city's most fervent devolutionary.
Devolution: Congress Doesn't 'Walk the Walk'
Their ecclesiology is devolutionary, their polity is democratic, and their theology is inductive.
Does faith have a future?
To "hope," in these devolutionary times, "that we have conveyed much of the Hanoverian England we carry in our heads" surely means something more.
Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords
Moreover, faced with the uncertainty surrounding decentralizing and devolutionary proposals at the state and federal levels, it is prudent for cities to safeguard against the prospects of states' shifting service or financing responsibilities to them.
Most cities better able to meet local needs
They also demonstrate how far the Republican Congress, which once professed to recognize this limitation, has regressed from its devolutionary rhetoric of 1992.
Fiddling with foster care
Instead of the Chronicles' devolutionary scheme, which portrays early British history as the gradual decline of an advanced civilization, Britannia's opening chapters narrate British origins as the slow and bloody civilizing process that followed Roman colonization, which "chased away all savage barbarisme from the Britans minds .
Irishmen, aristocrats, and other white barbarians
The Christian Right's lobbying for the devolutionary "Contract With America," calling for redirection of authority to the states while addressing the social issues only indirectly, also confirms the point.
The evolving politics of the Christian Right

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