bouleversement

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French bouleversement.

Noun

bouleversement (plural bouleversements)

1. Complete overthrow; reversal; turmoil
   • 1916, The Publishers Weekly - Volume 89, page 596:

     It reflects the feverish hopes, the quick successes, the amazing social bouleversements only possible when all the old elements of society have been poured together and shaken up pellmell.

   • 2002, Paolo Soleri, What if?: collected writings 1986-2000, page 18:

     This is a bouleversement of Plato.

   • 2014, William Henry Smyth, Aedes Hartwellianae - Volume 1, page 25:

     Among these the nautilus pompilius, or pearly nautilus, affords a truly admirable study, since it actually exists in the present, and is also found in the recent, and the ante-diluvian state,—being the only creature known to have maintained its station through the many supposed bouleversements and cataclysms which the globe has undergone: in more exact words—from still existing, it affords a valuable aid towards revealing the inhabitant of the allied fossil forms, which endured from the Devonian period through the carboniferous group, the liassic formation, the oolites, and the green sands, up to the London clay.

French

Etymology

From bouleverser +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bul.vɛʁ.sə.mɑ̃/

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

Noun

bouleversement m (plural bouleversements)

1. disruption, havoc

Further reading

• “bouleversement”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.