Revolutionary

How to spell revolutionary

13 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce revolutionary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does revolutionary mean?

1. adjectiveInvolving or causing a complete and dramatic change in the way something is done.
2. nounA person who works to bring about a complete political or social overthrow of the existing system.

Revolutionary in a sentence

• adjective

  The new battery offered a revolutionary improvement in driving range.

• noun

  The exiled revolutionary spent years plotting against the regime.

• adjective

  Her revolutionary approach to remote teaching reshaped the entire department.

• noun

  The museum displayed letters written by a famous revolutionary of the era.

Where does revolutionary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb volvere, meaning 'to roll' or 'to turn', combined with the prefix re-, giving revolvere, 'to roll back' or 'to turn around'. From the related noun revolutio, meaning 'a turning around', medieval astronomers borrowed the term to describe the circular movement of the heavens, and English took it through Old French as 'revolution' in the 1300s. The political sense, a complete overturning of an established order, grew naturally from that image of a great wheel turning, and it became fixed in English after events like the upheavals of 1688 and the late eighteenth century. The adjective 'revolutionary' appears in the late 1600s and exploded into common use during the American and French revolutions. The same volvere root still spins inside everyday relatives such as 'revolve', 'evolve', and 'volume', and the spelling trap lies in that quiet middle 'lu' plus the long '-tionary' tail, where writers often drop a letter.

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• volut (from Latin volvere: to roll, turn)
• -ion (noun-forming)
• -ary (adjective/noun suffix)