revelation

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
revelation
    n 1: the speech act of making something evident [syn:
         {disclosure}, {revelation}, {revealing}]
    2: an enlightening or astonishing disclosure
    3: communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural
       agency [syn: {revelation}, {divine revelation}]
    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 [syn: {Revelation}, {Revelation of Saint John the
       Divine}, {Apocalypse}, {Book of Revelation}]
    
from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Revelation \Rev`e*la"tion\, n. [F. r['e]v['e]lation, L.
   revelatio. See {Reveal}.]
   1. The act of revealing, disclosing, or discovering to others
      what was before unknown to them.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. That which is revealed.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. (Theol.)
      (a) The act of revealing divine truth.
      (b) That which is revealed by God to man; esp., the Bible.
          [1913 Webster]

                By revelation he made known unto me the mystery,
                as I wrote afore in few words.    --Eph. iii. 3.
          [1913 Webster]

   4. Specifically, the last book of the sacred canon,
      containing the prophecies of St. John; the {Apocalypse} or
      {Book of Revelation} or {The Revelation of Saint John}.
      [1913 Webster]
    
from The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
REVELATION, n.  A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed
all that he knew.  The revealing is done by the commentators, who know
nothing.
    
from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
Revelation
an uncovering, a bringing to light of that which had been
previously wholly hidden or only obscurely seen. God has been
pleased in various ways and at different times (Heb. 1:1) to
make a supernatural revelation of himself and his purposes and
plans, which, under the guidance of his Spirit, has been
committed to writing. (See WORD OF {GOD}.) The
Scriptures are not merely the "record" of revelation; they are
the revelation itself in a written form, in order to the
accurate presevation and propagation of the truth.

  Revelation and inspiration differ. Revelation is the
supernatural communication of truth to the mind; inspiration
(q.v.) secures to the teacher or writer infallibility in
communicating that truth to others. It renders its subject the
spokesman or prophet of God in such a sense that everything he
asserts to be true, whether fact or doctrine or moral principle,
is true, infallibly true.
    
from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
147 Moby Thesaurus words for "revelation":
      Christophany, Satanophany, admission, afflatus, angelophany,
      announcement, apocalypse, apparition, appearance, appearing,
      arising, astonishment, avatar, baring, blockbuster, blow, bomb,
      bombshell, bringing to light, bulletin, casual discovery, catch,
      catching, chance discovery, coming, coming into being,
      coming-forth, communique, confession, declaration, detection,
      determination, determining, direct communication, discernibleness,
      disclosing, disclosure, discovering, discovery, dissemination,
      distinguishment, divine inspiration, divine revelation,
      earthshaker, embodiment, emergence, epiphany, espial, evidence,
      evincement, excavation, exhumation, expose, exposition, exposure,
      expression, eye-opener, find, finding, finding out, forthcoming,
      incarnation, indication, information, inspiration, invention,
      issuance, joker, kicker, laying bare, leak, locating, location,
      lucky strike, manifestation, materialization, materializing,
      mystical experience, mysticism, news, observability, occurrence,
      opening, oracle, outcrop, outcropping, patefaction, perceptibility,
      peripeteia, pneumatophany, presentation, proclamation,
      pronouncement, proof, prophecy, publication, realization,
      recognition, rediscovery, removing the veil, revealing, revealment,
      rise, rising, seeableness, serendipity, shocker, showing,
      showing forth, showing up, showup, spotting, staggerer, startler,
      statement, strike, stripping, surprisal, surprise, surprise ending,
      surprise package, surprise party, switch, the seen, the visible,
      theophania, theophany, theopneustia, theopneusty, thunderbolt,
      thunderclap, treasure trove, trouvaille, trove, uncloaking,
      uncovering, unearthing, unfolding, unfoldment, unmasking,
      unveiling, unwrapping, visibility, visibleness, vision, visuality,
      what is revealed

    

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