about-face
/əˈbaʊtˌfeɪs/
about-face noun: an abrupt turn to face the opposite direction.
Noun
about-face (plural about-faces)
- An abrupt turn to face the opposite direction.
- The soldier did an about-face and marched off.
- Deciding that he hasn't had enough action for one day, Captain Evans of the Johnston orders another 180-degree about-face to give gunfire support to the new arrivals, this time picking on the heavy cruiser Tone.2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 22:11 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2022
- A reversal in direction; a reversal of attitude or opinion.
- When Luke heard the news, he did an abrupt about-face on the policy.
- Sidney Powell does an about-face on her Stop the Steal claims [title]2021 March 23, David Von Drehle, “Sidney Powell does an about-face on her Stop the Steal claims”, in Washington Post, →ISSN
Verb
about-face (third-person singular simple present about-faces, present participle about-facing, simple past and past participle about-faced)
about-face meaning in Malayalam, Tagalog and Thai
about-face in Malayalam
- turnaround, reversal, right about
- പുറം തിരിയൽ, പെട്ടെന്നു നയംമാറൽ, നേർവിപരീതം, എതിർഭാഗത്തേയ്ക്കു തിരിയൽ, മറ്റൊരു ദിശയിലേക്കു നോക്കൽ, തകിടം മിറച്ചിൽ
about-face in Tagalog
- military: abrupt turn to face the opposite direction
- harap sa likod
about-face in Thai
- military: abrupt turn to face the opposite direction
- กลับหลังหัน glàp-lǎng-hǎn
- to turn 180 degrees
- กลับหลังหัน glàp-lǎng-hǎn
Examples of about-face in a sentence
- In yet another about-face decision on speech, Mr.2021 July 8, Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang, quoting Mark Zuckerberg, “Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Partnership Did Not Survive...
- His [Jake Angeli's] about-face is such that he is even taking his case back to court to ask his guilty plea to be reversed.2023 July 15, “The ‘QAnon Shaman’ and other Capitol rioters who regret pleading guilty”, in BBC News:
Forms of about-face
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | about-faces |
| alternative form | about face |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | about-faces |
| present participle | about-facing |
| past participle | about-faced |
| past | about-faced |
Origin of about-face
From about + face, first attested in 1861, used in the imperative in the military.
Questions about about-face
- What does about-face mean?
- About-face means an abrupt turn to face the opposite direction.
- What is about-face in Malayalam?
- About-face in Malayalam is പുറം തിരിയൽ, പെട്ടെന്നു നയംമാറൽ, നേർവിപരീതം. See About-face meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use about-face in a sentence?
- In yet another about-face decision on speech, Mr.
- What part of speech is about-face?
- About-face can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce about-face?
- About-face is pronounced /əˈbaʊtˌfeɪs/ (US).
- What is the plural of about-face?
- The plural of about-face is about-faces.
Words near about-face in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: about-face (page history and authors); about-face (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-about-face.wav.
Cite this entry: “about-face.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/about-face. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.