UPHEAVAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does upheaval mean? 

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

1. a state of violent disturbance and disorder (as in politics or social conditions generally)

2. a violent disturbance

3. (geology) a rise of land to a higher elevation (as in the process of mountain building)

4. disturbance usually in protest

  Familiarity information: UPHEAVAL used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UPHEAVAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of violent disturbance and disorder (as in politics or social conditions generally)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

Sturm und Drang; turbulence; upheaval

Context example:

the industrial revolution was a period of great turbulence

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

disorder (a disturbance of the peace or of public order)

Domain category:

government; political science; politics (the study of government of states and other political units)

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

agitation; ferment; fermentation; tempestuousness; unrest (a state of agitation or turbulent change or development)

roller coaster (anything characterized by abrupt and extreme changes (especially up and down))

violence (a turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc.)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A violent disturbance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

convulsion; turmoil; upheaval

Context example:

the convulsions of the stock market

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

commotion; disruption; disturbance; flutter; hoo-ha; hoo-hah; hurly burly; kerfuffle; to-do (a disorderly outburst or tumult)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(geology) a rise of land to a higher elevation (as in the process of mountain building)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

upheaval; uplift; upthrow; upthrust

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

ascension; ascent; rise; rising (a movement upward)

Domain category:

geology (a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks)

Derivation:

upheave (lift forcefully from beneath)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Disturbance usually in protest

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

agitation; excitement; hullabaloo; turmoil; upheaval

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

disturbance (the act of disturbing something or someone; setting something in motion)

 Context examples 

At this single point in the interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden volcanic upheaval.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At that time, the ecosystem was undergoing dramatic climate and tectonic upheavals as Africa collided with Eurasia and the modern East African Rift System formed.

(Fossil discovery in Tanzania reveals ancient bobcat-sized carnivore, National Science Foundation)

Four times as long as the Grand Canyon, and twice as deep in places, these faults and canyons indicate a titanic geological upheaval in Charon’s past.

(Pluto’s Big Moon Charon Reveals a Colorful and Violent History, NASA)

Their height, as we approached them, seemed to me in some places to be greater than he had stated—running up in parts to at least a thousand feet—and they were curiously striated, in a manner which is, I believe, characteristic of basaltic upheavals.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)