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revolve

When something revolves, it turns on an axis or in an orbit around something else. People who love you probably think the world revolves around you (but really, the earth revolves around the sun).

Revolve comes from those useful Latin roots re- "again" or "back" and volvere "roll," as seen in evolution, involve, and lots of other familiar words. Picture a revolving door, and you can understand what it means to revolve, or turn in a circular motion.

DEFINITIONS OF: revolve

1

v turn on or around an axis or a center

“The Earth revolves around the Sun”
Synonyms:
go around, rotate
circumvolve, rotate
cause to turn on an axis or center
Types:
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drive in, screw
cause to penetrate, as with a circular motion
screw
turn like a screw
wheel, wheel around
change directions as if revolving on a pivot
gyrate, reel, spin, spin around, whirl
revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis
swirl, twiddle, twirl, whirl
turn in a twisting or spinning motion
screw up
screw or turn higher
cartwheel
do cartwheels: perform an acrobatic movement using both hands and feet
whirligig
whirl or spin like a whirligig
Type of:
turn
move around an axis or a center

v move in an orbit

Synonyms:
orb, orbit
Types:
retrograde
move backward in an orbit, of celestial bodies
Type of:
circle, circulate
move in circles

v cause to move by turning over or in a circular manner of as if on an axis

Synonyms:
roll
roll, turn over
move by turning over or rotating
Types:
transit
revolve (the telescope of a surveying transit) about its horizontal transverse axis in order to reverse its direction
Type of:
displace, move
cause to move or shift into a new position or place, both in a concrete and in an abstract sense
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