revolutionary

Compare French révolutionnaire; equivalent to revolution +‎ -ary.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌɹɛvəˈluʃənɛɹi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɹɛvəˈluːʃənɹi/, /-ˈljuː-/

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revolutionary (comparative more revolutionary, superlative most revolutionary)

1. Of or pertaining to a revolution in government; tending to, or promoting, revolution

   revolutionary war

   revolutionary measures

   revolutionary agitators

   • 1957, Chung-cheng (Kai-shek) Chiang, “Introduction”, in Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-up at Seventy‎^[1], New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 3:

     In 1885, one hundred and ten years after the American Declaration of Independence, a young Chinese medical doctor named Sun Yat-sen began preaching his revolutionary principles. Ten years later, in 1895, he founded in Honolulu the first Chinese revolutionary party with what then must have seemed an unbelievably ambitious aim of overthrowing the monarchical system of government which had been in continuous existence in China for forty centuries.

2. pertaining to something that portends of great change; overthrowing a standing mindset

   a revolutionary new tool

3. (sciences) pertaining to something that revolves

revolutionary (plural revolutionaries)

1. A revolutionist; a person who revolts.
   • 1942 March, “Notes and News: Monument to a Stillborn Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 88:

     "The Chengtu revolutionaries were fantastically colourful in the Szechwanese manner—they costumed themselves as heroes of the stage and their energies were chiefly occupied in tying ropes across the main streets so that when Imperial officials rode by in their litters they would have to get down and crawl under, losing face.