turnabout
(ˈtɜːnəbaʊt)
Also with hyphen.
[f. the verbal phr. turn about (turn v. 65). See also turn n. 40, and turn-bout (turn-).]
The action or an act of turning about; one who or that which does this. a. The act of turning so as to face the other way. Also fig.
| 1833 Regul. Instr. Cavalry i. 48 By a turn-about the dressing is changed. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic cxxxviii, A moment's horror; then quick turn-about On high-heeled shoe. 1897 Westm. Gaz. 25 Mar. 1/2 The strange turn⁓about in the attitude of some zealous people towards Russia. |
† b. A disease causing cattle to turn round and round; gid. Also turn-about sickness, vertigo. Obs.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. iii. Furies 610 The Turn⁓about and Murrain trouble Cattell. 1611 Cotgr., s.v. Tournement, Tournement de teste, the turne-about sick⁓nesse; a giddinesse, or dizzinesse. |
† c. A winding; a ‘maze’. Obs.
| a 1603 T. Cartwright Confut. Rhem. N.T. (1618) 604 The Iesuites ignorant of their owne mystery of iniquity, and strangers as it were in the giddy turn-about of their owne Cloisters. |
† d. One who turns about or alters things; an innovator. Obs.
| a 1670 Hacket Abp. Williams ii. (1693) 36 Our modern Turn-abouts cannot evince us, but that we feel we are best affected, when the great Mysteries of Christ are celebrated upon Anniversary Festivals. |
† e. A double-barrelled gun. Obs. † f. A turn-stile. Obs. g. A small steamer having the deadwood cut away astern, and an additional rudder fitted in the space thus made, to facilitate quick turning; also attrib. h. U.S. A ‘giant's stride’ or merry-go-round.
| 1789 J. Byng Torrington Diaries 1 June (1938) IV. 109 There was (today) a little Fair, and a Stall, and a Turnabout to make the children sick after their Gingerbread. 1801 Sporting Mag. XVII. 159 A kind of double gun, known by the name of Turnabout. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 144 The turn-about or w[h]irlout gate is only necessary where a frequency of passage is required. 1885 Pall Mall G. 22 June 3/1 The folly which led them [the Admiralty] to use a swift and finely lined turnabout, built by White, of Cowes, to carry cabbages and potatoes on board the vessels lying in Portsmouth Harbour. 1889 Harper's Mag. Sept. 560/1 The high swings and the turnabouts; the tests of the strength of limb and lung. 1894 W. H. White Man. Nav. Archit. xviii. (ed. 3) 652 In a considerable number of small vessels and torpedo-boats an arrangement of balanced rudders has been fitted... This arrangement..is known as the ‘turn-about’ system. Ibid. 699 A second [gun-boat]..identical..except that the after deadwood had been cut away, and the ‘turn-about’ system applied. |