Other forms: revolves, revolving, revolved
To revolve is to move in a circle around something. The earth around the sun, a door around its central post.
Strictly, revolving is going around an outside point while rotating is spinning on your own axis, though everyday speech mixes them freely. The word gives us revolving doors and the revolving restaurant. Its best-known use is figurative: when a life revolves around something, that thing is at the centre of everything else. The noun revolution has both meanings, one an orbit and one the overthrow of a government, which turns out to be the same idea of coming full circle.
To revolve is to roll back. Latin volvō meant to roll and revolvō to turn over, and in Latin it also meant to think a thing over, so revolving and reflecting were once the same motion.
Latin
revolvō
Old French
revolver
Middle English
revolven
English, today
revolve
Built from
From Middle English revolven, from Old French revolver, from Latin revolvō. From Middle English revolven (“to change direction”), borrowed from Old French revolver (“to reflect upon”), from Latin revolvō (“turn over, roll back, reflect upon”), from re- (“back”) + volvō (“roll”); see voluble, volve.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA