Word.ws English Dictionary

about face

about face is the alternative spelling of about-face.

Meaning of about-face

Noun

about-face (plural about-faces)

  1. An abrupt turn to face the opposite direction.
    • The soldier did an about-face and marched off.
  2. (figuratively) A reversal in direction; a reversal of attitude or opinion.
    • When Luke heard the news, he did an abrupt about-face on the policy.

See all 4 meanings of about-face

Forms of about face

Noun
pluralabout faces
Verb
third-person singular presentabout faces
present participleabout facing
past participleabout faced
pastabout faced

Questions about about face

What is about face the alternative spelling of?
About face is the alternative spelling of about-face.

Words near about face in the dictionary

  1. abounds with
  2. about
  3. About box
  4. About boxes
  5. about east
  6. about face
  7. about faced
  8. about faces
  9. about facing
  10. about me
  11. about mes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: about face (page history and authors); about-face (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-about face.wav.

Cite this entry: “about face.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/about_face. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.