Other forms: revels, reveled, reveling, revelled, revelling
To revel is to take great delight in something. Revel in it, revelling in the attention, revel in the detail.
It takes in and it always implies enjoying something openly and at length — revelling in somebody's misfortune is not a private pleasure. As a noun, revels are festivities, and the Master of the Revels was a real Tudor office that licensed plays. Note revelry; and that revel and rebel are the same Latin word, since a revel was originally a riotous disturbance.
1verbrevelTo take great delight in something.
“The children revelled in the freedom of the long summer holidays.”
2nounfestivityA festivity.
“The midsummer revels went on until dawn, with music and dancing on the green.”
revel is a delighting, or a festivity.
Old French reveler meant to be disorderly or make merry, from Latin rebellare, to rebel. Revel and rebel are the same word, one gone to the party and one to the barricade.
Latin
rebello — to rebel
Old French
revel
Middle English
revelen
English, today
revel
Built from
From Middle English revelen, from Old French revel, from reveler (“to be disorderly, to make merry”), from Latin rebello (“to rebel”). a doublet of rebel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA