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Rotate   Listen
verb
Rotate  v. i.  (past & past part. rotated; pres. part. rotating)  
1.
To turn, as a wheel, round an axis; to revolve.
2.
To perform any act, function, or operation in turn, to hold office in turn; as, to rotate in office.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rotate" Quotes from Famous Books



... can transport bodies or communicate locomotive power to them at a predetermined rate of speed. We can project them, divide them up in a few or an infinite number of pieces, accordingly as we break them or grind them to powder; we can twist bodies or make them rotate, modify, compress, expand, or extend them. The whole science, sir, rests ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... a revolving or rinsing motion the three circular figures printed on the next page appear to rotate. The best effect will be produced by laying the book down flat on the desk or ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... forwards, that is, towards the apex of the leaf, or backwards, that is, towards its base; or, again, they may rotate on their own axes without moving either upwards or downwards. But in almost every case the plane of the blade is so placed as to stand nearly or quite vertically at night. Therefore the apex, or the base, or either lateral edge, may be directed towards the zenith. Moreover, the upper surface of ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... the Sun, and consequently included in the inner group, are of more moderate size, denser, rotate more slowly and with nearly equal velocity (their periods of revolution being almost all about 24 hours), are less compressed at the poles, and with the exception of one, are without satellites. The exterior ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... does; they merely reflect the sunlight which they receive from him. Putting this one fact aside, the analogy between the planetary system and a satellite system is remarkable. The satellites are spherical in form, and differ markedly in size; they rotate, so far as we know, upon their axes in varying times; they revolve around their governing planets in orbits, not circular, but elliptic; and these orbits, furthermore, do not of necessity lie in the same plane. ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... Jan. 12, 1836, was seen a luminous body, seemingly two-thirds the size of the moon. It seemed to rotate on an axis. Central to it there seemed to ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... Kelvin pointed out, if there were no friction of the air, the ring once created would rotate for ever. If, therefore, there were such a thing as a perfect fluid, and there were vortex rings in it, nothing could destroy these rings when once they were created, and this is one of the most striking ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... is attached at its centre to an axis at right angles to its length. Pivots at each extremity of this axis rotate upon fixed bearings, so that the movements of the telescope are completely restricted to the plane of the meridian. Inside the eye-piece of the telescope extremely fine vertical fibres are stretched. The observer watches the moon, or star, or planet enter the field of view; and ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... the eccentric rod, and at their upper ends by a transverse yoke. This yoke, filling snugly between two collars formed upon a sleeve which it embraces, imparts a longitudinal motion to the latter, while at the same time leaving it free to rotate. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... a sharp breath. Outside, the broken ground fell away to space and the stars. The ovoid that was the ship hung against them, lit by the hidden sun, a giant even at her distance but dwarfed by the balloon she towed. As that bubble tried ponderously to rotate, rainbow gleams ran across it, hiding and then revealing the constellations. Here, on the asteroid's axis, there was no weight, and one moved with underwater smoothness, as if disembodied. "Oh, ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson

... elbow to the side with the forearm at right angles to the arm: turn the arm around until the forearm points away from the body. Then carry the arm up from the body until it is level with the shoulder. In this position gradually rotate the arm again and then bring the arm to the side, with the forearm across the chest, hand pointing to the other shoulder when it should be bandaged by pieces of bandages three inches wide passing around the arm, elbow and body. A ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... a belt between the drill's motor and the sleeve of the female socket, the sleeve would rotate as if it were on ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett

... are human beings upon them. For it is an inference of reason, that such huge bodies as the planets are, some of which exceed this Earth in magnitude, are not empty bodies, created only to be carried and to rotate around the sun, and to shine with their scanty light (lumen) for the benefit of one earth only; but that they must needs have a nobler use than this. He who believes, as every one ought to believe, that the Divine created the universe for no other end than the existence of the human race, ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg

... however, verbs of no literary account which in usage either vary in the stress or take it on the latter syllable. Such are 'locate', 'orate', 'negate', 'placate', and perhaps 'rotate'. With most of these we could well dispense. 'Equate' is mainly a technical word. Dictionaries seem to prefer the stress on the ultima, but some at least of the early Victorian mathematicians said ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... about eight hours of our time, and between them you eat, sleep, read or play cards ... but you do not explore or anything like that! The ship goes there every three weeks, and we usually figure eighteen weeks there, then the three weeks back here. The guards and others rotate that way. They have a tendency to ... uh ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... agriculture is that they rotate the soil rather than the crops. Their methods of intensive farming are so wonderful that if North and South Dakota could be farmed as is Belgian soil, nearly all the people in the United States could move to these two states and be fed. Belgium is a land of very small farms and it is said ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... surely point to some untoward happening. Hardly had the idea entered her head ere the huge sails were revolving. At that very moment Diether had reached the interior of the great drum-wheel, and his surprise and horror were unbounded when it commenced to rotate. It was useless to attempt to stop the machinery; useless, also, to appeal to Haennchen. Round and round he went, till at last he fell unconscious on the bottom of the engine, and still he went on rotating. As Haennchen had anticipated, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... knowledge we have to-day. The old nomenclature we use, but without definite meaning; the latter is left to be inferred from the connection or context. If a man should attach to the water main in a city a properly constructed waterwheel, the latter will rotate; but it would not be proper to say that he received rotation from the reservoir. What he received was water with a certain pressure; in other words, a certain form of energy, which he transforms into rotation ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... eye is situated in the orbital cavity, to which it is attached by muscles that rotate it in different directions. The orbit is lined by fibro-fatty tissues that form a cushion for the eye. Anteriorly it is protected by the eyelids, and in birds by a third eyelid that corresponds to the membrana nictitans ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... being negotiated cabinet: Council of Ministers nominated by the council chairmen note: President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ejup GANIC (since 28 December 1999; Vice President Ivo ANDRIC-LUZANIC (since 28 December 1999); note - president and vice president rotate every year; President of the Republika Srpska: vacant since Nikola POPLASEN was removed by the Office of the High Representative on 5 March 1999 (see Government note) elections: the three members of the presidency (one Bosniak, one Croat, one Serb) are elected by popular vote for a four-year ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... matter, and assuming that other conditions are equal, every engine that carries a fly wheel that is larger than is necessary consumes a certain number of foot pounds in turning so much metal around through space. Were it possible to cut off at the same point and rotate as positively without a fly wheel, it would be done away with entirely. Some straight line air compressors are so constructed that the momentum of the piston and other moving parts is nearly sufficient to equalize the strains without a fly wheel; but the fly wheel is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... the study of sun-spots that we have learned that the sun's surface does not appear to rotate all at the same speed. The "equatorial" regions are rotating quicker than regions farther north or south. A point forty-five degrees from the equator seems to take about two and a half days longer to complete one rotation than a point ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... three hundred thousand years ago. First of all our planet hung in the form of vapour, and drifted with millions of other similar clouds through space; then the vapour became liquid; then the globular form was assumed, and the flying ball began to rotate round the great attracting body. We cannot tell how living forms first came on earth; for they could not arise by spontaneous generation, in spite of all that Dr. Bastian may say. Of the coming of life we can say nothing—rather an odd admission, by-the-way, for gentlemen who are ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... Mr. Walden, sir, is of a most high complication,"—rejoined Mr. Netlips with a gracious bend of his fat neck—"And it is not to be regretted by the profane that you should rotate with the world, provided you are seen in strict adhesion to the pulpit on the acceptable seventh day. Otherwise, it is but natural that you should preamble for health's sake. You have been looking poorly, Mr. Walden sir, of late; I trust you will ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... close to the brink of the rising-ground, entirely surrounded by men, when I placed the muzzle of the Dean & Adams against the breast of the largest man before me, and pulled the trigger, but pulled in vain; the cylinder would not rotate; I imagine a cap had got jammed by the trigger-guard. In a fit of desperation, I was raising the revolver to hit the man in the face with it, when I suddenly found my legs powerless to support me, and I was falling, grasping for support, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... before a television camera—that Mr. Dabney had started from the well-known fact that the properties of space are modified by energy fields. Magnetic and gravitational and electrostatic fields rotate polarized light or bend light or do this or that as the case may be. But all previous modifications of the constants of space had been in essentially spherical fields. All previous fields had extended in all directions, increasing ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... of the vocal mechanism could be determined, the science of Voice Culture would not benefit thereby. Knowing how the muscles should act does not help us to make them act properly. It is utterly idle to tell the vocal student that as the pitch of the voice rises the arytenoid cartilages rotate, bringing their forward surfaces together, and so shortening the effective length of the vocal cords. Whatever the vocal cords are required to do is performed through an instinctive obedience to the demands of ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... or seven plastic 5-gallon "drip system" buckets, (see below) set one by each plant, and fill them all with a hose each time I work in the garden. Doing 12 or 14 plants each time I'm in the garden, it takes no special effort to rotate through them all more or less ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... assist it to get out of the place it has occupied so long. You must begin first to rotate or roll the placenta first one way and then another, up, down and across the vagina, by gently pulling the cord. Look out or you will pull the cord loose from the placenta; then you will have made your first blunder,—no cord to pull placenta with, and the mother bleeding and faint from ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... position B, then since the angles A O B at the center, and A C B in the circumference, stand on the same arc, A B, the former is double the latter, showing that the cross revolves twice round the center O during each rotation of C; and since A C B A D B, C and D rotate with equal velocities, and these rotations and the revolution about O have the same direction. While revolving, the cross rotates about its traveling center, A, in the opposite direction, the contact between the two circles being internal, and at a rate equal to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... another of those interesting plants which go to sleep at night. Some members of the genus erect one half of the leaf and droop the other half until it becomes a vertical instead of the horizontal star it is by day. Frequently the leaflets rotate as much as 90 degrees on their own axes. Some lupines fold their leaflets, not at night only, but during the day also there is more or less movement in the leaves. Sun dial, a popular name for the wild lupine, has reference to this peculiarity. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... radikvorto. Root (of trees, etc.) radiko. Root up elradiki. Rope sxnurego. Rosary rozario. Rose rozo. Rosebush rozarbeto. Rose-coloured rozkolora. Rosette banto. Rosemary rosmareno. Rosewood palisandro. Rosin kolofono. Rostrum tribuno. Rosy roza, rugxa. Rot putri, putrigxi. Rotate turnigxi. Rotation turnigxado. Rotation, in laux vico, lauxvice. Rottenness putreco, putro—ajxo. Rotunda rotondo. Rouble rublo. Rough (surface) malglata, malebena. Rough (rugged) sxtonplena. Rough (manner) malafabla. Rough, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... glowing point she nears, Where the heavens rotate, Follows through the starry spheres Phoebus' course, or straight Takes for comrade 'mid the stars Saturn cold ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... operations, first the loosening process, then the setting process. Goods are run on a cylinder, then passed over several rolls, and are kept tight so as to avoid wrinkles. The cylinders are immersed in hot water and the goods are allowed to rotate in this water for about twenty minutes, after which they are taken out for one or two hours. They are then returned to the machine for about twenty-five minutes and are subjected to boiling and also to additional pressure. The boiling water sets the fabric and the additional ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... in place. With one end of a piece of cotton basting thread in your teeth and the spool in your right hand, start binding the ribs down to the arrow shaft. After a few turns proceed up the shaftment, adjusting the feathers in position as you rotate the arrow. Let your basting thread slip between the bristles of the feather about half an inch apart. When you come to the rear end, finish up with several overlapping turns and a half-hitch. Line up your feathers so that they run straight down the shaftment and are equidistant. Of one thing ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... habitually decided by motives. No one denies that motives exist adequate to decide the will; even though it may not always be conscious of them. Science has proved that forces, sensible and occult, physical and metaphysical, simple and complex, surround, traverse, vibrate, rotate, repel, attract, without stop; that man's senses are conscious of few, and only in a partial degree; but that, from the beginning of organic existence, his consciousness has been induced, expanded, trained in the lines of his sensitiveness; and that the rise of his faculties from a lower power ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... orbit of Neptune, and then rush inwards to the centre, only to be driven outwards again. Surging out and in, the fluid mass would expand and contract alternately, until in course of ages the fiery tides would cease to ebb and flow. If the impact had been somewhat indirect it would rotate slowly on its axis, and under the influence of gravity and centrifugal force acquire a globular shape which would gradually flatten to a lenticular disc. As it cooled and shrank in volume it would whirl the faster round its axis, and grow ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... the rubbery, air-excluding mold closed on him and the airtight cylinder rotated, delivering him into the interior of the ship. He pushed the button impatiently to have it revolve back for Pierce, but it remained obstinately open, its servo refusing to close on a mold full of air and rotate air back ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... difficulties are as follows: First, how to get the whole chaotic mass whirling round in one common direction; secondly, how to account for the fact that in our solar system the outermost planets and satellites do not rotate in the same direction as the rest. There is a widespread idea that these difficulties have proved fatal to the old nebular hypothesis, and there are distinguished astronomers who think so. But Sir R. Ball (see note), Professor Lowell (see note), Professor Pickering (Annals of Harvard ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... circles round which Irish questions rotate is nowhere seen more clearly than in this connection. When complaint is made that a disproportionately small number of Catholics hold high appointments in the public offices in Ireland, the reply is made that the number of members of that Church with high educational ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... knob approximately half way to the right. Rotate the station selector knob slowly until a station is heard. Tune this station in until the minimum amount of background noise is heard. Increase or decrease the volume to the desired level by adjusting the volume control knob. Careful ...
— Delco Manuals: Radio Model 633, Delcotron Generator - Delco Radio Owner's Manual Model 633, Delcotron Generator Installation • Delco-Remy Division

... molten lava. A great wind seems to blow through the world, and the subject is aware of something resembling a steam hammer striking the back of the head. During this phase, the ears ring loudly, the eyeballs rotate and there is ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... which it lies on surface A, for instance, it will linger for a time unstably halfway up, and if the lever cease to urge it, it will tumble back or "relapse" under the continued pull of gravity. But if at last it rotate far enough for its centre of gravity to pass beyond surface A altogether, the body will fall over, on surface B, say, and abide there permanently. The pulls of gravity towards A have vanished, and may now be disregarded. The polyhedron has become immune against ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... worked by clockwork inclosed between two disks, and would rotate continuously were it not for the catch, G, working in and out of the cogs. Through this catch, G, the wheel is dependent on the movement of electro-magnet. This cogged wheel is a double one, consisting of two wheels coupled together, exactly similar one with the other, and so fixed that the cogs ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... indented, triangular, leaf-shaped, kite-shaped, and lozenge-shaped. Commander Cameron, the African explorer, mentioned that arrow-heads of the same shape as many exhibited by Mr. Knowles were in use in various African tribes. One shape was formed so as to cause the arrow to rotate, and was principally used for shooting game at long distances. The shape of the arrows varied according to the taste of the makers; in one district there were forty or fifty ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... one terminal of the magnet with the battery and the other with the clamping screw, e, of the magnet, and by connecting the commutator spring, j, with the remaining pole of the battery, the motor will be made to rotate rapidly. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... of them appeared to be seized with a rotary movement. The voice rose to a higher pitch than usual, and assumed a tremolo. Then, if the other person was also endowed with sensibility, he or she would rotate and quake in somewhat the same manner. Their cups of tea would be considerably agitated. They would move about in as unnatural a manner as possible; and when they left the room, they would do so with gaspings and much waste ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... she went on smiling. "Loan me your pocket knife and a piece of paper from your notebook. If I cut out a rectangular piece of paper from this sheet and mount it on a pivot or shaft at A B, I can rotate it through 180 degrees, just like a child's teeter-totter, so that X will be where Y originally was. That is in two dimensions. Now, simply add one dimension all the way round and you will have what daddy is doing with space. He does it by shoving fifty or a hundred pounds of ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... little doubt that Jupiter is a miniature sun, only not hot enough at its surface to shine by its own light The point in which it most resembles the sun is that its equatorial regions rotate in less time than do the regions near the poles. This shows that what we see is not a solid body. But none of the careful observers have yet succeeded in determining the law of this ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... force, as we can readily see, tends, when combined with the original impetus given to the ball, to deflect or cause time ball to curve in the direction of the dotted line, B P, instead of maintaining its right line direction, B K. If the ball rotate about its vert axis in the opposite direction, the curve, B N, will ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... produced in terminal clusters, one large flower being surrounded by a whorl of smaller ones; they are of a rich purplish-blue inside the corolla, which is rotate; the segments (mitre-shaped) and the spaces between are prettily furnished with a feathery fringe; the wide tube is also finely striped inside; the calyx is tubular, having long awl-shaped segments; the stems are procumbent, firm (almost woody), ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood



Words linked to "Rotate" :   twirl, spin around, grow, alternate, circumvolve, serve, wheel, rotation, crank up, turn out, gyrate, revolve, birle, whirl, rotatory, twiddle, drive in, swirl, reel, screw, birl, spread out, go around, spin, turn



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