REVELATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Revelation mean? 

• REVELATION (noun)
  The noun REVELATION has 4 senses:

1. the speech act of making something evident

2. an enlightening or astonishing disclosure

3. communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency

4. the last book of the New Testament; contains visionary descriptions of heaven and of conflicts between good and evil and of the end of the world; attributed to Saint John the Apostle

  Familiarity information: REVELATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REVELATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The speech act of making something evident

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

disclosure; revealing; revelation

Hypernyms ("revelation" is a kind of...):

speech act (the use of language to perform some act)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "revelation"):

singing; tattle; telling (disclosing information or giving evidence about another)

display (behavior that makes your feelings public)

divulgement; divulgence (the act of disclosing something that was secret or private)

discovery (something that is discovered)

discovery ((law) compulsory pretrial disclosure of documents relevant to a case; enables one side in a litigation to elicit information from the other side concerning the facts in the case)

giveaway (an unintentional disclosure)

informing; ratting (to furnish incriminating evidence to an officer of the law (usually in return for favors))

leak; news leak (unauthorized (especially deliberate) disclosure of confidential information)

exposure (the disclosure of something secret)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An enlightening or astonishing disclosure

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("revelation" is a kind of...):

brainstorm; brainwave; insight (the clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation)

Derivation:

reveal (make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

divine revelation; revelation

Hypernyms ("revelation" is a kind of...):

informing; making known (a speech act that conveys information)

Derivation:

reveal (disclose directly or through prophets)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The last book of the New Testament; contains visionary descriptions of heaven and of conflicts between good and evil and of the end of the world; attributed to Saint John the Apostle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

Apocalypse; Book of Revelation; Revelation; Revelation of Saint John the Divine

Instance hypernyms:

book (a major division of a long written composition)

Domain member category:

Four Horsemen ((New Testament) the four evils that will come at the end of the world: conquest rides a white horse; war a red horse; famine a black horse; plague a pale horse)

Holonyms ("Revelation" is a part of...):

New Testament (the collection of books of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline and other epistles, and Revelation; composed soon after Christ's death; the second half of the Christian Bible)

Derivation:

reveal (disclose directly or through prophets)

 Context examples 

Ruth in tears—passionate, angry tears—was a revelation to him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

If you are in a steady relationship but not married, you seem to have been rocked by a sudden revelation or development.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Other revelations from the mission include that Jupiter has two previously uncharted radiation zones.

(NASA's Juno Probes the Depths of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, NASA)

I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though of what nature I could not imagine.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

’Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen—the great big beast mentioned iv in Revelation; an’ no good end will he ever come to.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“What we hope is that Zealandia will appear on world maps, in schools, everywhere ...I think the revelation of a new continent is pretty exciting.”

(Researchers Argue for Eighth Continent: Zealandia, VOA)

While the revelation showed how Jupiter lightning is similar to Earth's, where these lightning bolts flash on each planet is actually quite different.

(Juno Solves 39-Year Old Mystery of Jupiter Lightning, NASA)

"You precocious chick! Who put that into your head?" said Jo, enjoying the innocent revelation as much as the Professor.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Stephen Houston, professor of archaeology and anthropology at Brown University, told the BBC that the revelation of the sprawling Central American civilization was "breathtaking."

(Hidden Mayan Civilization Revealed in Guatemala Jungle, VOA)