turn around
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: turns around
form: turning around
form: turned around
form: turned around
Senses: examples: text: At the end of the road, we turned around and walked back to the hotel.
text: The world turns around once every twenty-four hours.
text: Turn around once or twice so I can see your new dress.
text: A wheel turns around on an axle.
text: If you kids don't cut it out I will turn this car around!
text: ...and called him his father; this overpowered the brave man's heart, and obliged him to turn around, to prevent the tears that stood ready to gush from his eyes.
ref: 1756 November, Isaac Kimber, Edward Kimber, editors, The London magazine, or, Gentleman's monthly intelligencer, volume 25, page 517:
glosses: To physically rotate (usually around a vertical axis) for a half turn (180 degrees), a whole turn (360 degrees), or an indefinite amount.
examples: text: She turned her position around and now she is in favor of the merger.
text: Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.
ref: 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:
glosses: To change drastically in a fundamental way, often for the better; to change to the opposite (opinion or position).
examples: text: The new management team has really turned the company around 180 degrees, and they expect a good profit next year.
text: The team really turned it around in the second half for a great win.
text: They were way ahead but the game turned around on them and they lost 4–3.
text: It took changes from Wenger and a rare defensive lapse from Everton before Arsenal finally turned the game around with two goals in the space of five minutes.
ref: 2011 February 1, Phil McNulty, “Arsenal 2-1 Everton”, in BBC:
text: Pollard, who went into the semifinals with an unsatisfactory 63% return from the kicking tee, turned it around splendidly against Wales and he continued that form despite missing his first attempt in the final.
ref: 2019 November 3, Liam de Carme, “Boks, you beauties”, in Sunday Times:
topics: business
hobbies
lifestyle
management
sports
glosses: To reverse an expected outcome (of a game, etc.), usually from a losing outcome to a winning one; to return (a business, department, etc.) to effectiveness, profitability, etc.
examples: text: Some months ago, the Captain had come to the FBI with a story that he had been contacted by Soviet agents, and the FBI had “turned him around” and used him to plant false and specially made up classified material of no importance on the Soviets.
ref: 2014, Joseph DiMona, To the Eagle's Nest:
topics: espionage
government
military
politics
war
glosses: To convert (an agent) to work for one's own side.
examples: text: You can't just turn around and say that it was all my fault.
glosses: To suddenly change or reverse one's opinion, point of view, stated position, behaviour, etc.
examples: text: Let's turn that around and look at it from another angle.
glosses: To consider from a different viewpoint.
raw_tags: of an idea
examples: text: We can turn around 500 units by next week.
text: Typically, this meant that the teams were turning around two sets a week, with a train rolling into the depot on a Sunday for what Hinze describes as a "big strip-out". This would pull the carriages back almost to the bare bones.
ref: 2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 27:
glosses: (often with a unit of time) To produce; to output; to generate.
Derived terms: every time one turns around
get turned around
turn-around
turn one's life around
turn the boat around
whenever one turns around