Revolution

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Revolution \Rev`o*lu"tion\, n. [F. r['e]volution, L. revolutio.
     See {Revolve}.]
     1. The act of revolving, or turning round on an axis or a
        center; the motion of a body round a fixed point or line;
        rotation; as, the revolution of a wheel, of a top, of the
        earth on its axis, etc.


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     2. Return to a point before occupied, or to a point
        relatively the same; a rolling back; return; as,
        revolution in an ellipse or spiral.
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              That fear
              Comes thundering back, with dreadful revolution,
              On my defenseless head.               --Milton.
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     3. The space measured by the regular return of a revolving
        body; the period made by the regular recurrence of a
        measure of time, or by a succession of similar events.
        "The short revolution of a day." --Dryden.
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     4. (Astron.) The motion of any body, as a planet or
        satellite, in a curved line or orbit, until it returns to
        the same point again, or to a point relatively the same;
        -- designated as the annual, anomalistic, nodical,
        sidereal, or tropical revolution, according as the point
        of return or completion has a fixed relation to the year,
        the anomaly, the nodes, the stars, or the tropics; as, the
        revolution of the earth about the sun; the revolution of
        the moon about the earth.
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     Note: The term is sometimes applied in astronomy to the
           motion of a single body, as a planet, about its own
           axis, but this motion is usually called rotation.
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     5. (Geom.) The motion of a point, line, or surface about a
        point or line as its center or axis, in such a manner that
        a moving point generates a curve, a moving line a surface
        (called a surface of revolution), and a moving surface a
        solid (called a solid of revolution); as, the revolution
        of a right-angled triangle about one of its sides
        generates a cone; the revolution of a semicircle about the
        diameter generates a sphere.
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     6. A total or radical change; as, a revolution in one's
        circumstances or way of living.
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              The ability . . . of the great philosopher speedily
              produced a complete revolution throughout the
              department.                           --Macaulay.
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     7. (Politics) A fundamental change in political organization,
        or in a government or constitution; the overthrow or
        renunciation of one government, and the substitution of
        another, by the governed.
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              The violence of revolutions is generally
              proportioned to the degree of the maladministration
              which has produced them.              --Macaulay.
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     Note: When used without qualifying terms, the word is often
           applied specifically, by way of eminence, to: (a) The
           English Revolution in 1689, when William of Orange and
           Mary became the reigning sovereigns, in place of James
           II. (b) The American Revolution, beginning in 1775, by
           which the English colonies, since known as the United
           States, secured their independence. (c) The revolution
           in France in 1789, commonly called the French
           Revolution, the subsequent revolutions in that country
           being designated by their dates, as the Revolution of
           1830, of 1848, etc.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  revolution
       n 1: a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and
            behaving; "the industrial revolution was also a cultural
            revolution"
       2: the overthrow of a government by those who are governed
       3: a single complete turn (axial or orbital); "the plane made
          three rotations before it crashed"; "the revolution of the
          earth about the sun takes one year" [syn: {rotation}, {gyration}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  206 Moby Thesaurus words for "revolution":
     Fabianism, about-face, accommodation, adaptation, adjustment,
     alteration, ambit, amelioration, anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism,
     anarchy, angular momentum, angular motion, angular velocity,
     antinomianism, apostasy, arsis, axial motion, beat, betterment,
     bout, bowling, break, breakup, capsizal, capsize, cataclysm,
     centrifugation, change, change of heart, changeableness, chaos,
     circle, circuit, circulation, circumgyration, circumrotation,
     circumvolution, civil disorder, confusion, constructive change,
     continuity, conversion, coup d'etat, course, crack-up,
     criminal syndicalism, culbute, cycle, defection, degeneration,
     degenerative change, deterioration, deviation, diastole,
     difference, diffusion, discontinuity, disintegration, disorder,
     disorderliness, disorganization, dispersal, disruption,
     dissolution, divergence, diversification, diversion, diversity,
     downbeat, emeute, exfoliation, extremism, fitting, flip-flop,
     fragmentation, full circle, general uprising, gradual change,
     gradualism, gyration, gyre, improvement, insurgence, insurgency,
     insurrection, jacquerie, lap, levee en masse, loop, lynch law,
     melioration, meliorism, metamorphosis, misrule, mitigation,
     mob law, mob rule, mobocracy, modification, modulation, mutiny,
     nihilism, ochlocracy, orbit, outbreak, overset, overthrow,
     overturn, peasant revolt, pirouette, pivoting, primal chaos,
     progressivism, pulse, putsch, qualification, radical change,
     radical reform, radicalism, re-creation, realignment, rebellion,
     redesign, reel, reeling, reform, reformation, reformism,
     regeneration, remaking, renewal, reorganization, reshaping,
     restructuring, reversal, revisionism, revival, revivification,
     revolt, revolute, revolve, riot, rising, roll, rolling, rotation,
     rotational motion, round, round trip, rounds, scaling, scattering,
     series, shake-up, shattering, shift, somersault, somerset, spell,
     spill, spin, spinning, subversion, sudden change, swinging,
     swirling, switch, swiveling, syndicalism, systole, take-over,
     thesis, tohubohu, total change, tour, transformation, transition,
     trolling, trundling, turbination, turmoil, turn, turnabout,
     turning, turnover, twirl, unruliness, upbeat, upheaval, uprising,
     upset, upturn, utopianism, variation, variety, violent change,
     volutation, volution, walk, wheel, wheeling, whir, whirl, whirling,
     worsening
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  REVOLUTION, n.  In politics, an abrupt change in the form of
  misgovernment.  Specifically, in American history, the substitution of
  the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the
  welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch. 
  Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of
  blood, but are accounted worth it -- this appraisement being made by
  beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed.  The
  French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day;
  when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are
  inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law
  and order.