The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Revolution \Rev`o*lu"tion\, n. [F. r['e]volution, L. revolutio.
   See Revolve.]
   1. The act of revolving, or turning round on an axis or a
      center; the motion of a body round a fixed point or line;
      rotation; as, the revolution of a wheel, of a top, of the
      earth on its axis, etc.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Return to a point before occupied, or to a point
      relatively the same; a rolling back; return; as,
      revolution in an ellipse or spiral.
      [1913 Webster]

            That fear
            Comes thundering back, with dreadful revolution,
            On my defenseless head.               --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The space measured by the regular return of a revolving
      body; the period made by the regular recurrence of a
      measure of time, or by a succession of similar events.
      "The short revolution of a day." --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. (Astron.) The motion of any body, as a planet or
      satellite, in a curved line or orbit, until it returns to
      the same point again, or to a point relatively the same;
      -- designated as the annual, anomalistic, nodical,
      sidereal, or tropical revolution, according as the point
      of return or completion has a fixed relation to the year,
      the anomaly, the nodes, the stars, or the tropics; as, the
      revolution of the earth about the sun; the revolution of
      the moon about the earth.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: The term is sometimes applied in astronomy to the
         motion of a single body, as a planet, about its own
         axis, but this motion is usually called rotation.
         [1913 Webster]

   5. (Geom.) The motion of a point, line, or surface about a
      point or line as its center or axis, in such a manner that
      a moving point generates a curve, a moving line a surface
      (called a surface of revolution), and a moving surface a
      solid (called a solid of revolution); as, the revolution
      of a right-angled triangle about one of its sides
      generates a cone; the revolution of a semicircle about the
      diameter generates a sphere.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. A total or radical change; as, a revolution in one's
      circumstances or way of living.
      [1913 Webster]

            The ability . . . of the great philosopher speedily
            produced a complete revolution throughout the
            department.                           --Macaulay.
      [1913 Webster]

   7. (Politics) A fundamental change in political organization,
      or in a government or constitution; the overthrow or
      renunciation of one government, and the substitution of
      another, by the governed.
      [1913 Webster]

            The violence of revolutions is generally
            proportioned to the degree of the maladministration
            which has produced them.              --Macaulay.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: When used without qualifying terms, the word is often
         applied specifically, by way of eminence, to: (a) The
         English Revolution in 1689, when William of Orange and
         Mary became the reigning sovereigns, in place of James
         II. (b) The American Revolution, beginning in 1775, by
         which the English colonies, since known as the United
         States, secured their independence. (c) The revolution
         in France in 1789, commonly called the French
         Revolution, the subsequent revolutions in that country
         being designated by their dates, as the Revolution of
         1830, of 1848, etc.
         [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

revolution
    n 1: a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and
         behaving; "the industrial revolution was also a cultural
         revolution"
    2: the overthrow of a government by those who are governed
    3: a single complete turn (axial or orbital); "the plane made
       three rotations before it crashed"; "the revolution of the
       earth about the sun takes one year" [syn: rotation,
       revolution, gyration]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

206 Moby Thesaurus words for "revolution":
   Fabianism, about-face, accommodation, adaptation, adjustment,
   alteration, ambit, amelioration, anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism,
   anarchy, angular momentum, angular motion, angular velocity,
   antinomianism, apostasy, arsis, axial motion, beat, betterment,
   bout, bowling, break, breakup, capsizal, capsize, cataclysm,
   centrifugation, change, change of heart, changeableness, chaos,
   circle, circuit, circulation, circumgyration, circumrotation,
   circumvolution, civil disorder, confusion, constructive change,
   continuity, conversion, coup d'etat, course, crack-up,
   criminal syndicalism, culbute, cycle, defection, degeneration,
   degenerative change, deterioration, deviation, diastole,
   difference, diffusion, discontinuity, disintegration, disorder,
   disorderliness, disorganization, dispersal, disruption,
   dissolution, divergence, diversification, diversion, diversity,
   downbeat, emeute, exfoliation, extremism, fitting, flip-flop,
   fragmentation, full circle, general uprising, gradual change,
   gradualism, gyration, gyre, improvement, insurgence, insurgency,
   insurrection, jacquerie, lap, levee en masse, loop, lynch law,
   melioration, meliorism, metamorphosis, misrule, mitigation,
   mob law, mob rule, mobocracy, modification, modulation, mutiny,
   nihilism, ochlocracy, orbit, outbreak, overset, overthrow,
   overturn, peasant revolt, pirouette, pivoting, primal chaos,
   progressivism, pulse, putsch, qualification, radical change,
   radical reform, radicalism, re-creation, realignment, rebellion,
   redesign, reel, reeling, reform, reformation, reformism,
   regeneration, remaking, renewal, reorganization, reshaping,
   restructuring, reversal, revisionism, revival, revivification,
   revolt, revolute, revolve, riot, rising, roll, rolling, rotation,
   rotational motion, round, round trip, rounds, scaling, scattering,
   series, shake-up, shattering, shift, somersault, somerset, spell,
   spill, spin, spinning, subversion, sudden change, swinging,
   swirling, switch, swiveling, syndicalism, systole, take-over,
   thesis, tohubohu, total change, tour, transformation, transition,
   trolling, trundling, turbination, turmoil, turn, turnabout,
   turning, turnover, twirl, unruliness, upbeat, upheaval, uprising,
   upset, upturn, utopianism, variation, variety, violent change,
   volutation, volution, walk, wheel, wheeling, whir, whirl, whirling,
   worsening



The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

REVOLUTION, n.  In politics, an abrupt change in the form of
misgovernment.  Specifically, in American history, the substitution of
the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the
welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.
Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of
blood, but are accounted worth it -- this appraisement being made by
beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed.  The
French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day;
when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are
inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law
and order.