revolutionary

Pluralrevolutionaries

1. 1
   adjective

   Marking or bringing about a dramatic, far-reaching change that overturns established ways of thinking.

   Like the printing press, which transformed how knowledge spread across the world.

   The discovery of antibiotics was a revolutionary moment in medicine.

   His revolutionary approach to architecture rejected every convention of the era.

   Similargroundbreaking, radical, innovative, pioneering, trailblazing

   Oppositeconventional, traditional, conservative

   Note

   Here the word is praise borrowed from politics. A revolutionary new tool overturns habits, not governments. The pairing with new is a natural one, because the claim is about breaking with what came before. The adjective takes degrees, so one design can be more revolutionary than another. Used loosely it becomes hype, so it earns its place only when an established way of thinking is truly displaced.

2. 2
   adjective

   Relating to the overthrow of a government, or tending to promote and bring one about.

   The revolutionary army marched on the capital to topple the monarchy.

   Pamphlets spread revolutionary ideas among the discontented peasants.

   Similarinsurgent, subversive, seditious, radical

   Oppositecounterrevolutionary, conservative, reactionary

   Note

   The political core of the word: revolution with the suffix -ary, much as French has révolutionnaire. It usually stands before a noun naming who acts or how they act, as in revolutionary war, revolutionary measures or revolutionary agitators. When Chiang Kai-shek wrote in 1957 of Sun Yat-sen preaching "his revolutionary principles," the word carried its full political weight. The "great change" meaning borrows that weight for ideas and inventions.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person who takes part in or works to bring about the overthrow of a government.

   The exiled revolutionary returned home to lead the new government.

   Several revolutionaries were captured during the failed coup.

   Similarrebel, insurgent, insurrectionist, revolutionist, radical

   Oppositecounterrevolutionary, loyalist, reactionary

4. 4
   adjective

   Relating to or characterized by turning around a central point or axis.

   The model traced each moon's revolutionary movement around its planet.

   Astronomers charted the revolutionary period of the comet around the sun.

   Similarorbital, rotational

   Note

   A scientist's use that takes revolution literally, as going round. It describes a body traveling around an external point or axis, the way a moon circles its planet. That sets it apart from rotation, which is turning about an axis through the body itself. Because the "great change" meaning is so familiar, a phrase like revolutionary period needs clear context to read as orbital rather than groundbreaking.

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