a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving
<noun.event> the industrial revolution was also a cultural revolution
the overthrow of a government by those who are governed
<noun.act>
a single complete turn (axial or orbital)
<noun.event> the plane made three rotations before it crashed the revolution of the earth about the sun takes one year
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.
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.
That fear Comes thundering back, with dreadful revolution, On my defenseless head. --Milton.
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.
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.
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.
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.
6. A total or radical change; as, a revolution in one's circumstances or way of living.
The ability . . . of the great philosopher speedily produced a complete revolution throughout the department. --Macaulay.
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.
The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree of the maladministration which has produced them. --Macaulay.
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.
Those groups have been largely disillusioned with Mrs. Aquino's failure to institute reforms after the "people power" revolution.
But beneath that mood of celebration, the country faces a future of political uncertainty, exhaustion from the conflict with its ancient Arab enemy, deep economic malaise and debate about which path the revolution must now take.
Mrs. Lawrence was one of the leaders of the creative revolution of the 1960s.
Under the threat of Iraqi missiles and air raids, Iranians vote Friday for a new parliament that will be a key factor in determining the course of the Islamic revolution.
I'm not sitting by the telephone." Kemp, addressing Republican delegates on the convention's opening night Monday, pledged to continue the Reagan revolution.
Like many of the Islamic revolution's hard core, she is watching closely for signs of deviation from that line following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The leaders spoke at a ceremonial meeting of Parliament commemorating the 34th anniverary of Hungary's 1956 revolution, the bloodiest in the Soviet bloc.
Hung joined the revolution at the age of 16. The French arrested him in 1931 and banished him to a decade and a half of hard labor at the notorious prison island of Poulo Condore.
To some, it looks like the start of an appropriately polite revolution.
In Havana, President Fidel Castro pledged "socialism or death" in a televised speech marking the 30th anniversary of his communist revolution.
The key figure in the economic revolution brewing in this city of 9 million is Gavriil Popov, an outspoken economist and lawmaker whom the council was expected to elect mayor today.
The record peak for oil imports was 8.8 million barrels a day in 1977, two years before the Iranian revolution sparked the secon oil crisis of the decade.
But the man who called himself a nationalist was at odds with his more radical leftist comrades and grew disillusioned with the Sandinista revolution.
The accord also calls for suspension of a decree to return land confiscated in the 1979 Sandinista revolution to the original owners.
Prosecutions will centre on torture, mass shootings and other 'inhuman' means used to suppress the 1956 revolution.
Some former members, impatient with waiting for revolution, formed a group known as The Order.
It is freezing. There is a gas heater in the room, a vast, primitive thing that looks like a pre-industrial revolution experiment, all monstrous valves and knobs and stopcocks.
She would be the first British monarch to visit the Soviet Union since the 1917 revolution that overthrew the czar.
The trial is being held in downtown Timisoara, the western city where the revolution originated.
The three Baltic republics _ Estonian, Lithuania, and Latvia _ were independent after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution until 1940, when they were absorbed by the Soviet Union under a secret agreement between Stalin and Hitler.
Mr. Wood suggests, in his introduction to the book accompanying the series, that "film is the true successor of the Greek mimetic revolution, and the West is still in the grip of that obsession with the illusion of reality in art."
He said he and his wife visited Czechoslovakia in December, shortly after the "velvet revolution" that ended communist rule.
Since Friday night, Nicaraguans have celebrated the anniversary of the 1979 revolution.
In a statement before a military court of honor that stripped the accused of military ranks and decorations, Ochoa said he deserved to die for betraying Castro and the revolution.
Iran suspended executions during celebrations Feb. 1-10 of the 10th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Fuentes' novels include "Hydra Head," "Where the Air is Clear," and "Old Gringo," the fictionalized story of American writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared in Mexico during the revolution.
A registry of private Cuban properties seized by the revolution of Fidel Castro is being compiled in Miami by exiles eager to return home and recoup their losses if Castro is toppled.
Calming the waters is something very much needed, as the Sandinistas nurse the wounds of defeat and deal with the alarming thought that some of their dearest "achievements of the revolution" might be reversed.
"The triumph of the revolution requires unity, severe discipline and a spirit of sacrifice.
Voican was in Tirgu Mures, a city of 165,000 northwest of Bucharest, to lead the central government's efforts to defuse the worst crisis since the December revolution.