Other forms: revolutions
A revolution is the overthrow of a system of power by the people under it. The French Revolution, a revolution in 1917, on the brink of revolution.
It also means a complete change in how something is done — the industrial revolution, a revolution in farming — and that use is common and often exaggerated in advertising. The third sense is literal and physical: one revolution is one complete turn, which is what revs and rpm mean on a car dashboard. All three come from the same idea of turning: a political revolution turns the order upside down, and the word arrived in politics from astronomy.
1nounrevolutionThe overthrow of a government or system by the people.
“The revolution took eleven days.”
2nounchangeA complete change in how something is done.
“It was a revolution in the way schools were run.”
3nounturnOne complete turn of something.
“The engine does four thousand revolutions a minute.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
revolution is a complete overturning.
Latin revolutio meant a revolving, from revolvere, to roll back. The political sense came from the idea of a wheel of fortune turning — a restoration of a proper order rather than the creation of a new one, which is almost the opposite of what the word now means.
Latin
revolūtiō — the act of revolving; revolution
Old French
revolucion
Middle English
revolucion
English, today
revolution
Middle English revolucion, borrowed from Old French revolucion, from Latin revolūtiō (“the act of revolving; revolution”), from Latin revolvō (“roll back, revolve”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA