maturation

1 coming to full development; becoming mature [syn: ripening, maturement]

2 (biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level; "he proposed an indicator of osseous development in children" [syn: growth, growing, development, ontogeny, ontogenesis] [ant: nondevelopment]

3 (medicine) the formation of morbific matter in an abscess or a vesicle and the discharge of pus [syn: festering, suppuration]

English

Noun

1. The process of becoming mature
2. The process of differentiation that produces the adult form of an organism

Maturation could refer to any of the following:

• Fetal development
• Developmental biology
• Emotional development
• Or physical maturation of any biological life form - see individual articles for maturation of different life forms.
• In research, a threat to internal validity in which subjects change during the course of the experiment or even between measurements and the researcher may not be able to determine if the cause of the discrepancy is due to time or the independent variable.

The process of becoming mature. The emergence of personal and behavioral characteristics through growth processes. The final stages of differentiation of cells, tissues, or organs

See also

• Mature

accomplishment, advance, advancement, aging, amplification, beautification, blossoming, budding, burgeoning, close, completing, completion, conclusion, culmination, development, developmental change, elaboration, embellishment, end, ending, enlargement, evolution, evolutionary change, evolvement, evolving, excrescence, expansion, explication, finish, finishing, flowering, full development, furtherance, gemmation, germination, gradual change, growth, maturescence, maturity, mellowing, natural development, natural growth, nonviolent change, outgrowth, overgrowth, perfection, procreation, progress, progression, pullulation, refinement, reproduction, ripeness, ripening, rise, rounding off, rounding out, seasoning, senescence, sprouting, tempering, termination, terminus, topping off, upgrowth, vegetation, windup