Rotation is the act of turning around a central point or axis, like a wheel spinning on its axle or the Earth turning on its axis to create day and night. When something rotates, each part of it moves in a circle around a fixed center.

Think of a merry-go-round at a playground. As it spins, you're experiencing rotation: you're moving in a circle while the center post stays still. The Earth completes one full rotation every 24 hours, which is why we have sunrise and sunset. A basketball spinning on a player's finger is rotating around the point where it touches their fingertip.

The word also describes taking turns in a regular pattern. Teachers might use job rotation in the classroom, where different students take turns being line leader, paper passer, or board eraser each week. Baseball teams rotate their pitchers so no single arm gets overworked. Farmers rotate their crops, planting corn one year and soybeans the next in the same field, because this keeps the soil healthy.

In both meanings, the key idea is circular movement or cyclical change. Whether it's a planet spinning in space or your family rotating who sets the dinner table each night, rotation means coming back around to where you started.