about-turn

See also: about turn

English

From the imperative phrase used in the military.

about-turn (plural about-turns)

(British, military) A turn of 180 degrees, typically in a military formation[First attested in the mid 20^th century.].^[1]
Total reversal of opinion or attitude[First attested in the mid 20^th century.].^[1]
- 2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph‎^[1]:
  A sell-out crowd of 10,000 then observed perfectly a period of silence before the team revealed their black armbands, complete with stitched-in poppies, for the match. After Fifa’s about-turn, it must have been a frantic few days for the England kit manufacturer. The on-field challenge was altogether more straightforward.
- 2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:
  When Francis visited Chile in 2018, he dismissed the protesters and accused them of “calumny” in the full gaze of the world’s press. It caused the head of the Vatican’s own sex abuse commission to rebuke his boss publicly. Back in Rome, Francis responded by dispatching an envoy to look into the case. When his report came back siding with the protesters, Francis did a swift about-turn and described what he said on his visit to Chile as “the lowest moment” of his papacy.

turn of 180 degrees

total reversal of opinion or attitude

about-turn (third-person singular simple present about-turns, present participle about-turning, simple past and past participle about-turned)

to turn 180 degrees

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “about-turn”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 7.