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REVOLUTION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The overthrow of a government by those who are governed
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("revolution" is a kind of...):
group action (action taken by a group of people)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "revolution"):
counterrevolution (a revolution whose aim is to reverse the changes introduced by a previous revolution)
Instance hyponyms:
American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; American War of Independence; War of American Independence (the revolution of the American Colonies against Great Britain; 1775-1783)
Chinese Revolution (the republican revolution against the Manchu dynasty in China; 1911-1912)
Cuban Revolution (the revolution led by Fidel Castro and a small band of guerrilla fighters against a corrupt dictatorship in Cuba; 1956-1959)
Bloodless Revolution; English Revolution; Glorious Revolution (the revolution against James II; there was little armed resistance to William and Mary in England although battles were fought in Scotland and Ireland (1688-1689))
French Revolution (the revolution in France against the Bourbons; 1789-1799)
Mexican Revolution (a revolution for agrarian reforms led in northern Mexico by Pancho Villa and in southern Mexico by Emiliano Zapata (1910-1911))
February Revolution; Russian Revolution (the revolution against the czarist government which led to the abdication of Nicholas II and the creation of a provisional government in March 1917)
Derivation:
revolt (make revolution)
revolutionary (relating to or having the nature of a revolution)
revolutionist (a radical supporter of political or social revolution)
revolutionize (overthrow by a revolution, of governments)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving
Example:
the industrial revolution was also a cultural revolution
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("revolution" is a kind of...):
alteration; change; modification (an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "revolution"):
Cultural Revolution; Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (a radical reform in China initiated by Mao Zedong in 1965 and carried out largely by the Red Guard; intended to eliminate counterrevolutionary elements in the government it resulted in purges of the intellectuals and socioeconomic chaos)
green revolution (the introduction of pesticides and high-yield grains and better management during the 1960s and 1970s which greatly increased agricultural productivity)
Derivation:
revolutionary (markedly new or introducing radical change)
revolutionise (change radically)
revolutionise (fill with revolutionary ideas)
revolutionist (a radical supporter of political or social revolution)
revolutionize (change radically)
revolutionize (fill with revolutionary ideas)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A single complete turn (axial or orbital)
Example:
the revolution of the earth about the sun takes one year
Synonyms:
gyration; revolution; rotation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural events
Hypernyms ("revolution" is a kind of...):
turn; turning (a movement in a new direction)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "revolution"):
clockwise rotation; dextrorotation (rotation to the right)
counterclockwise rotation; levorotation (rotation to the left)
axial motion; axial rotation; roll (rotary motion of an object around its own axis)
orbital motion; orbital rotation (motion of an object in an orbit around a fixed point)
spin (a swift whirling motion (usually of a missile))
Derivation:
revolutionary (of or relating to or characteristic or causing an axial or orbital turn)
revolve (move in an orbit)
revolve (turn on or around an axis or a center)
Context examples:
They calculate the year by the revolution of the sun and moon, but use no subdivisions into weeks.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The amount that the earth's revolution deviates from a circular path; the variation of an ellipse from a circle, where a circle has an eccentricity of 0.
(Eccentricity, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)
The paper blamed India’s ‘green revolution’ in the mid-1960s, which focused on cultivation of wheat and rice to meet food security demands, for the decline of the area of coarse cereals.
(Course grains better than rice for health, environment, SciDev.Net)
Marcello Canuto, a Tulane University archaeologist and one of the project's top investigators, said the discoveries are a "revolution in Maya archeology."
(Hidden Mayan Civilization Revealed in Guatemala Jungle, VOA)
While these internal revolutions were going on, her external life had been as busy and uneventful as usual, and if she sometimes looked serious or a little sad no one observed it but Professor Bhaer.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
A complete revolution, in which Peggotty bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, in regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Since organic semiconductors, widely used in applications such as OLEDs, are cheaper and easier to produce than silicon, it had been thought that spintronic devices based on organic semiconductors could power a future computer revolution.
(Certain organic semiconducting materials can transport spin faster than they conduct charge, University of Cambridge)
A day is the time for Earth to make one complete rotation on its axis, and a year is one revolution around the Sun — reminders that basic units of time and periods on Earth are intimately linked to our planet's motion in space.
(Deep-sea sediments lead to new understanding of solar system, National Science Foundation)
This was done by dumping them into a spinning receptacle that went at a rate of a few thousand revolutions a minute, tearing the water from the clothes by centrifugal force.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
John saw in a minute that a revolution of some kind was going on, but wisely asked no questions, knowing that Meg was such a transparent little person, she couldn't keep a secret to save her life, and therefore the clue would soon appear.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
