Etymology
Copernicus named his 1543 treatise on the movements of planets around the sun De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of Celestial Bodies) and this has come to be the model type of a scientific revolution. However, “revolution” is attested by at least 1450 in the sense of representing abrupt change in a social order. Political usage of the term had been well established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. The process was termed "The Glorious Revolution". Apparently the sense of social change and the geometric sense as in Surface of revolution developed in various European languages from Latin between the 14th and 17th centuries, the former developing as a metaphor from the latter. “Revolt” as an event designation appears after the process term and is given a related but distinct and later derivation.
Read more about this topic: Revolution
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)