rotate

Formsrotates, rotating, rotated

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To spin, turn, or revolve, typically around a center point or axis.

   The blades of the wind turbine rotate even in a light breeze.

   The Earth rotates once every twenty-four hours.

   Similarspin, turn, revolve, pivot, swivel

   Note

   Latin put a wheel inside this word: rota, "wheel", became the verb rotō, "revolve", and its participle rotātus gives English the -ate form. In this use nothing is acted on. A person rotates in a chair, and the earth rotates on its own. When someone turns a dial or a telescope, the verb takes an object, and that is its causative partner.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To cause something to spin, turn, or revolve around a point or axis.

   Rotate the dial clockwise until you hear a click.

   He rotated the telescope slowly until the moon came into view.

   Similarturn, spin, twist, swivel, revolve

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To advance through a sequence of positions or duties; to take turns.

   Volunteers rotate through the front desk in two-hour shifts.

   The on-call duty rotates among the four nurses each month.

   Similaralternate, cycle

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To advance someone or something through a sequence of positions; to allocate or deploy in turns.

   Commanders rotate fresh troops into the region every six months.

   The teacher rotated the seating chart every month to mix up the groups.

   Similarcycle, alternate, shuffle, switch

   Note

   The verb takes an object here and does the work behind taking turns. Someone does the moving, sending troops, staff or objects through positions one after another. Architectural Digest in 1975 stretches it into the home, praising the Japanese habit of keeping few possessions out at once and rotating the rest. The word covers display and storage as readily as duty rosters.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To grow or plant crops in a deliberate order, one after another on the same land.

   Many growers rotate wheat with legumes to break pest cycles and restore nitrogen.

   The farm rotated potatoes, oats, and clover across its fields for decades.

   Similaralternate

   Note

   Farming gives the verb a seasonal rhythm. What rotates is the crop, not the field. Different plantings follow one another on the same land, a practice that manages soil nutrients, pests and disease. The classic scheme is the Norfolk four-course sequence of wheat, turnips, barley and clover, with each crop taking its turn over the years.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To replace older materials, or to place older stock in front of newer stock so that the older items get used first.

   Grocery clerks rotate stock every morning, pulling older packages to the front of the shelf.

   The warehouse team rotated its inventory so nothing expired on the back shelves.

   Note

   In shops and warehouses you rotate stock, and the point is age rather than fairness. Older items move to the front, or are replaced, so they sell or get used before they spoil. Inventory managers call the principle FIFO, first in, first out. Unlike deploying in turns, nothing comes back around: the old goods simply leave first.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   Of a pilot or aircraft, to raise the nose during the takeoff run just before the wheels leave the ground.

   The airliner rotated smoothly near the far end of the runway.

   Pilots rotate when the aircraft reaches its calculated takeoff speed.

   Note

   A word from the cockpit, said of the aircraft itself: the plane rotates, lifting its nose in the last moment of the takeoff roll before the wheels leave the ground. The verb is usually tied to a speed, as in "rotates at sixty knots". It is the ordinary turning sense narrowed to a single movement, the whole airframe tipping nose-up.

8. 8
   adjective

   Having parts that radiate outward from a center like the spokes of a wheel.

   Potato flowers are rotate, spreading their fused petals out flat like a wheel.

   The speedwell's small blue corolla is rotate, opening almost completely flat.

   Note

   The adjective keeps the Latin wheel closest to the surface. Botanists use it of a corolla with a very short tube whose lobes spread out flat like spokes, as in Solanum and Veronica. It also describes a wheel-shaped spicule or scale. It is not comparable: a flower is rotate or it is not, and never more rotate than another.

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