(n.) Convenience; occasion; purpose; exigence; as, this will not serve his turn.
(n.) Incidental or opportune deed or office; occasional act of kindness or malice; as, to do one an ill turn.
(v. t.) To cause to move upon a center, or as if upon a center; to give circular motion to; to cause to revolve; to cause to move round, either partially, wholly, or repeatedly; to make to change position so as to present other sides in given directions; to make to face otherwise; as, to turn a wheel or a spindle; to turn the body or the head.
(v. t.) To cause to present a different side uppermost or outmost; to make the upper side the lower, or the inside to be the outside of; to reverse the position of; as, to turn a box or a board; to turn a coat.
(v. t.) To give another direction, tendency, or inclination to; to direct otherwise; to deflect; to incline differently; -- used both literally and figuratively; as, to turn the eyes to the heavens; to turn a horse from the road, or a ship from her course; to turn the attention to or from something.
(v. t.) To change from a given use or office; to divert, as to another purpose or end; to transfer; to use or employ; to apply; to devote.
(v. t.) To change the form, quality, aspect, or effect of; to alter; to metamorphose; to convert; to transform; -- often with to or into before the word denoting the effect or product of the change; as, to turn a worm into a winged insect; to turn green to blue; to turn prose into verse; to turn a Whig to a Tory, or a Hindu to a Christian; to turn good to evil, and the like.
(v. t.) To form in a lathe; to shape or fashion (anything) by applying a cutting tool to it while revolving; as, to turn the legs of stools or tables; to turn ivory or metal.
(v. t.) Hence, to give form to; to shape; to mold; to put in proper condition; to adapt.
(v. t.) To translate; to construe; as, to turn the Iliad.
(v. t.) To make acid or sour; to ferment; to curdle, etc.: as, to turn cider or wine; electricity turns milk quickly.
(v. t.) To sicken; to nauseate; as, an emetic turns one's stomach.
(v. i.) To move round; to have a circular motion; to revolve entirely, repeatedly, or partially; to change position, so as to face differently; to whirl or wheel round; as, a wheel turns on its axis; a spindle turns on a pivot; a man turns on his heel.
(v. i.) Hence, to revolve as if upon a point of support; to hinge; to depend; as, the decision turns on a single fact.
(v. i.) To result or terminate; to come about; to eventuate; to issue.
(v. i.) To be deflected; to take a different direction or tendency; to be directed otherwise; to be differently applied; to be transferred; as, to turn from the road.
(v. i.) To be changed, altered, or transformed; to become transmuted; also, to become by a change or changes; to grow; as, wood turns to stone; water turns to ice; one color turns to another; to turn Mohammedan.
(v. i.) To undergo the process of turning on a lathe; as, ivory turns well.
(v. i.) To become acid; to sour; -- said of milk, ale, etc.
(v. i.) To become giddy; -- said of the head or brain.
(v. i.) To be nauseated; -- said of the stomach.
(v. i.) To become inclined in the other direction; -- said of scales.
(v. i.) To change from ebb to flow, or from flow to ebb; -- said of the tide.
(v. i.) To bring down the feet of a child in the womb, in order to facilitate delivery.
(v. i.) To invert a type of the same thickness, as temporary substitute for any sort which is exhausted.
(n.) The act of turning; movement or motion about, or as if about, a center or axis; revolution; as, the turn of a wheel.
(n.) Change of direction, course, or tendency; different order, position, or aspect of affairs; alteration; vicissitude; as, the turn of the tide.
(n.) One of the successive portions of a course, or of a series of occurrences, reckoning from change to change; hence, a winding; a bend; a meander.
(n.) A circuitous walk, or a walk to and fro, ending where it began; a short walk; a stroll.
(n.) Successive course; opportunity enjoyed by alternation with another or with others, or in due order; due chance; alternate or incidental occasion; appropriate time.
(n.) Form; cast; shape; manner; fashion; -- used in a literal or figurative sense; hence, form of expression; mode of signifying; as, the turn of thought; a man of a sprightly turn in conversation.
(n.) A change of condition; especially, a sudden or recurring symptom of illness, as a nervous shock, or fainting spell; as, a bad turn.
(n.) A fall off the ladder at the gallows; a hanging; -- so called from the practice of causing the criminal to stand on a ladder which was turned over, so throwing him off, when the signal was given.
(n.) A round of a rope or cord in order to secure it, as about a pin or a cleat.
(n.) A pit sunk in some part of a drift.
(n.) A court of record, held by the sheriff twice a year in every hundred within his county.
(n.) Monthly courses; menses.
(n.) An embellishment or grace (marked thus, /), commonly consisting of the principal note, or that on which the turn is made, with the note above, and the semitone below, the note above being sounded first, the principal note next, and the semitone below last, the three being performed quickly, as a triplet preceding the marked note. The turn may be inverted so as to begin with the lower note, in which case the sign is either placed on end thus /, or drawn thus /.
Example Sentences:
(1) In January 2011, the Nobel peace prize laureate was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection .
(2) These are typically runaway processes in which global temperature rises lead to further releases of CO², which in turn brings about more global warming.
(3) Not only do they give employers no reason to turn them into proper jobs, but mini-jobs offer workers little incentive to work more because then they would have to pay tax.
(4) However, as the plan unravels, Professor Marcus's team turn on one another, with painfully (if painfully funny) results.
(5) Given Australia’s number one position as the worst carbon emitter per capita among major western nations it seems hardly surprising that islanders from Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and other small island developing states have been turning to Australia with growing exasperation demanding the country demonstrate an appropriate response and responsibility.
(6) Since the first is balked by the obstacle of deficit reduction, emphasis has turned to the second.
(7) He said: "Monetary policy affects the exchange rate – which in turn can offset or reinforce our exposure to rising import prices.
(8) A second Scottish referendum has turned from a highly probable event into an almost inevitable one.
(9) When reformist industrialist Robert Owen set about creating a new community among the workers in his New Lanark cotton-spinning mills at the turn of the nineteenth century, it was called socialism, not corporate social responsibility.
(10) "Especially at a time when they are turning down voluntary requests and securing the positions of senior managers."
(11) Each L subunit contains 127 residues arranged into 10 beta-strands connected by turns.
(12) Local minima of hand speed evident within segments of continuous motion were associated with turn toward the target.
(13) In just a week her life has been turned upside down.
(14) When asked why the streets of London were not heaving with demonstrators protesting against Russia turning Aleppo into the Guernica of our times, Stop the War replied that it had no wish to add to the “jingoism” politicians were whipping up against plucky little Russia .
(15) Berlin said it was not too late to turn back from the abyss, without proposing any decisions or action.
(16) The C-terminal sequence contains an amphiphilic alpha-helix of four turns which lies on the surface of the beta-barrel.
(17) Two years later, Trump tweeted that “Obama’s motto” was: “If I don’t go on taxpayer funded vacations & constantly fundraise then the terrorists win.” The joke, it turns out, is on Trump.
(18) A new bill, to be published this week with the aim of turning it into law by next month, will allow the government to use Britain's low borrowing rates to guarantee the £40bn in infrastructure projects and £10bn for underwriting housing projects.
(19) He campaigned for a no vote and won handsomely, backed by more than 61%, before performing a striking U-turn on Thursday night, re-tabling the same austerity terms he had campaigned to defeat and which the voters rejected.
(20) Seconds later the camera turns away as what sounds like at least 15 gunshots are fired amid bystanders’ screams.
Wry
Definition:
(v. t.) To cover.
(superl.) Turned to one side; twisted; distorted; as, a wry mouth.
(superl.) Hence, deviating from the right direction; misdirected; out of place; as, wry words.
(superl.) Wrested; perverted.
(v. i.) To twist; to writhe; to bend or wind.
(v. i.) To deviate from the right way; to go away or astray; to turn side; to swerve.
(a.) To twist; to distort; to writhe; to wrest; to vex.
Example Sentences:
(1) When I commiserate about the overnight flight that brought them here, Linney gives a wry grimace.
(2) The image was widely shared online and taken as a wry comment on pictures of Donald Trump’s all-male Oval Office team.
(3) Putin could have been forgiven for allowing himself a wry grin, as another court comprehensively trashed Berezovsky's reputation.
(4) No wry observations or whoops-a-daisy trombones to subvert the conceit for period lolz.
(5) She frequently talks about herself as an object of wry or amused discovery.
(6) It was described as the "Twitter revolution" , but almost a year on from Iran's disputed presidential elections, during which the use of social media by the opposition movement made headlines around the world, such claims prompt wry smiles from seasoned observers.
(7) Enigmatic and elusive, they may have named themselves after the US video director because they enjoy his work, or it may be a wry comment on something or other.
(8) Franzen did seem to have a certain sense of humour about himself, and in person has a wry, awkward charm.
(9) Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India.
(10) The cover art for the Cranberries' Bury the Hatchet (1999) was an evocation of paranoia – a giant eye bearing down on a crouching figure – that did neither band nor artist many favours; his image for Muse's Black Holes and Revelations (2006) amounted to a thin revival of his work for the Floyd that, if you were being generous, suggested a wry comment on that band's unconvincing attempts to revive the excesses of 1970s progressive rock.
(11) He was a nice man, unpretentious and with a wry manner.
(12) The secretary of state also made a wry comparison between the bipartisan co-operation underpinning the new Afghan government and the polarised state of American domestic politics.
(13) But he is courteous, wry, insightful and very much on the left of his party.
(14) "I think I know what's to come," Chua says with a wry smile.
(15) "I don't think that Plaid Cymru can overturn world capitalism," she says, with a wry smile.
(16) "They were very happy," Wazir recalls with a wry smile.
(17) We are seeing a shift in the expansion of tree cover loss to a second tier of smaller countries that traditionally get much less attention from environmental groups.” He added: “These countries are recovering from years of civil conflicts that have made them off limits to investors who are now looking for opportunities – it is a new frontier of investments.” The WRI analysis suggests that a rapidly growing palm oil industry is one of the biggest contributors to the change.
(18) Guy Shrubsole, at Friends of the Earth, said of the WRI report: "This is a scary number of coal-fired plants being planned.
(19) The WRI report also found that, after a slight dip during the economic troubles of 2008, the global coal trade has rebounded and rose by 13% in 2010.
(20) But he is far from being a show-off: 'In fact, he comes over as a modest individual with a wry sense of humour', says a colleague.