Meaning
To turn round and run away from a fight, danger, or difficult situation. The verb is disapproving, implying cowardice or an ignoble retreat rather than a wise tactical withdrawal, and it is often amplified as 'turn tail and run' or 'turn tail and flee'. Slightly informal and accusatory, imputing cowardice to whoever retreats. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Etymonline records 'to turn tail', meaning to wheel about and take flight, from the 1580s, and says it seems to have begun as falconry jargon for a hawk that swings its tail round as it flies off, a link the dictionary itself hedges as probable rather than proven. The underlying image needs little explanation: an animal or soldier showing its rear to the enemy while escaping. Merriam-Webster's current definition, to turn away so as to flee, matches the earliest recorded sense exactly, and the phrase has kept both its wording and its meaning for more than four centuries, which is unusual even among old English idioms.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- turn tail and flee
- turn tail and run
- turning tail
Usage Examples
- When the guard dog started barking, the intruders turned tail and scrambled back over the fence.
- The smaller firm turned tail at the first hint of litigation, abandoning the joint venture overnight.
- Instead of turning tail, the young barrister leaned into the hardest question of the hearing.