turn backとは 意味・読み方・使い方

動詞

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

1. (intransitive) To reverse direction and retrace one's steps.

   Synonyms: about turn, about face

   Realising he had forgotten his briefcase, he turned back and re-entered the office.

   • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1:

     Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

2. (transitive) To cause to reverse direction and retrace one's steps.

   The barrage of machine-gun fire turned back the encroaching soldiers.

   • 1951 February, “Notes and News: Lynton & Barnstaple Remains”, in Railway Magazine, page 136:

     Pilton Yard, the Lynton & Barnstaple headquarters, has been taken over by a fur trading firm, and would-be trespassers to the old engine-shed are turned back by the pungent odour of heaps of carcases.

3. To return to a previous state of being.

   He stopped drinking for a couple of years, but now he has turned back to his old ways.

   Once we take this decision, there's no turning back.

   • 1985, Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, Chris Hughes, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, in Songs from the Big Chair‎, performed by Tears for Fears:

     Welcome to your life
     There's no turning back
     Even while we sleep
     We will find you

4. (transitive) To prevent, or refuse to allow, passage or progress.

   Synonyms: drive away, repel, turn away, stop

   Coordinate term: kick out

   The soldiers turned back all the refugees at the frontier.

5. (transitive) To adjust to a previous setting.

   In Autumn we normally turn the clocks back one hour.

   I love that song: turn back to it!

6. (transitive) To fold something back; to fold down.

   Coordinate term: turn down

   When you make the bed, please always turn the sheet back over the blanket.

7. (obsolete, transitive) To give back; to return.
   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida‎, act II, scene II:

     We turn not back the silks upon the merchants,
     When we have soiled them; nor the remainder viands.

使用する際の注意点

• In sense 3 the object is normally a person, or group of people, or means of transport. It may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
• In senses 4 and 5 the object is normally a thing. It may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.

派生語

名詞

turnback (countable and uncountable, plural turnbacks)

1. (attributive) Part of a garment that is turned back.
2. (basketry) The turning back of a weaver around another element.
   • 1991, Rachel Nash Law, ‎Cynthia Wieboldt Taylor, Appalachian White Oak Basketmaking: Handing Down the Basket (page 86)

     Most basketmakers make their turnbacks in a particular section of the weaving on the sides or in the middle of the basket.

3. The act of turning back a boat containing immigrants.

   Coordinate term: turnaway

   • 2015 July 20, Paul Farrell, “Details about asylum seeker turnbacks to remain secret, commissioner rules”, in The Guardian‎:

     The information commissioner, Professor John McMillan, ruled that requests for watch officer logs and authorisations for turnbacks were exempt from release because they could have a “substantial adverse effect” on the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS).

4. The strap from the hames to the hip-strap, on a horse.
5. A place, e.g. on a railway, where vehicles can reverse direction, i.e. turn back.
   • 2023 June 14, David Clough, “Tram-trains are making tracks...”, in RAIL, number 985, page 54:

     Removal of one set of train turnbacks also makes more efficient use of infrastructure and reduces peak loads at interchange stations.

6. (US) A cadet at a military academy who fails a class and has to retake it.

参照

• “turnback”, in Collins English Dictionary.