Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, causing, or characterized by rotation: a rotary muscle.
- adj. Occurring or proceeding in alternation or succession.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of, pertaining to, or effecting rotation; turning or causing to turn about or upon an axis or support; relating to motion from or about a fixed point or center: opposed to reciprocatory.
- Going about in a recurrent series; moving from point to point; following in succession: as, rotatory assemblies.
- In zoology, rotatorial or rotiferal, as a wheel-animalcule.
- In anatomy, causing rotation: as, a rotatory muscle.
- n. In zoology, a rotatorian or rotifer.
Wiktionary
- adj. of, pertaining to, or causing rotation
- adj. alternate or successive
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Turning as on an axis; rotary.
- adj. Going in a circle; following in rotation or succession.
- adj. (Opt.) Producing rotation of the plane of polarization. See the Note under polarization.
- n. (Zoöl.), rare A rotifer.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to or characteristic or causing an axial or orbital turn
Examples
“It will be seen by the shape of this, that it will fly up as easily as a ball when it is laid in the trap, for the striker has only to tap one end of it, and up it flies, making many a summerset as it rises; while it is performing this turn-over motion, which philosophers call the rotatory, the striker makes a blow at it and sends it whither he pleases.”
“Wherever we can trace the law of periodicity we are strongly impressed with the idea of rotatory or orbitual motion.”
“He intimates, however, that they were not interesting, and that it was a very good thing for him, mentally and morally, when his term of service expired -- or rather when he was removed from office by the operation of that wonderful "rotatory" system which his countrymen had invented for the administration of their affairs.”
“The doors allow for both rotatory and translatory motion in one go, and their spinning around the central axis ends up saving on 50% of space — otherwise consumed by the conventional doors as they open up.”
“By contrast, at the heart of the third version is the revolutionary turbulence of a "rotatory movement that never comes to a standstill," and which Schelling compares to an "unremitting wheel" and the”
'The Abyss of the Past': Psychoanalysis in Schelling's Ages of the World (1815)
“I loved the breezy motion like a waltz and how u threw in the wordplays amidst the rotatory breathlessness!”
“She then crumbled the sand to pieces, and mixt it with the water; this she did not in a rotatory manner, but by pulling her hands towards herself, as shewn in the following sketch.”
The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805
“Having done this, she gave the sand and water a rotatory motion, so as to make a part of the sand and water fly over the brim of the calabash.”
The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805
“With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy.”
“Parts suddenly drawn aside are to be suddenly drawn back by a rotatory motion.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rotatory’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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circle
ensō, ring, ngoeloe, ponilti, pongokpu, whirl, coil, band, halo, almucantar, cromlech, gyre and 52 more...
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Adjectives
chatoyant, boustrophedon, iridescent, alure, rotatory, briarean, squally, tenebrous
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for rotatory.

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