the act of rotating as if on an axis; "the rotation of the dancer kept time with the music"
a planned recurrent sequence (of crops or personnel etc.); "crop rotation makes a balanced demand on the fertility of the soil"; "the manager had only four starting pitchers in his rotation"
a single complete turn (axial or orbital); "the plane made three rotations before it crashed"; "the revolution of the earth about the sun takes one year"
(mathematics) a transformation in which the coordinate axes are rotated by a fixed angle about the origin
directed or facing toward the back or rear; "a backward view"
(used of temperament or behavior) marked by a retiring nature; "a backward lover"
retarded in intellectual development
in a manner or order or direction the reverse of normal; "it's easy to get the `i' and the `e' backward in words like `seize' and `siege'"; "the child put her jersey on backward"
tending to or capable of propelling; "propellant fuel for submarines"; "the faster a jet plane goes the greater its propulsive efficiency"; "universities...the seats of propulsive thought"
a belief that can guide behavior; "the architect has a theory that more is less"; "they killed him on the theory that dead men tell no tales"
a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"