Word.ws English Dictionary

J-turn

J-turn noun: a 180-degree turn in a vehicle, where the vehicle starts in reverse and ends driving forwards so that the direction of travel remains the same.

j-turn: a 180-degree turn in a vehicle, where the vehicle starts in reverse and ends driving forwards so...
Image: Evan Mason, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

J-turn (plural J-turns)

  1. A 180-degree turn in a vehicle, where the vehicle starts in reverse and ends driving forwards so that the direction of travel remains the same.
    • The institute reported that its tests showed the CJ-5 would overturn when performing a J-turn at just 22 mph.2001, Carl T. Bogus, Why Lawsuits are Good for America: Disciplined Democracy, Big Business, and the Common Law, New York University Press, page 160
    • This maneuver results in spinning the vehicle into a perfect 180-degree J-turn. Without losing any momentum, the driver then guns the engine and speeds off in the opposite direction.2006, Henry M. Holden, To Be a U.S. Secret Service Agent, Zenith Press, page 47

Forms of J-turn

pluralJ-turns

Origin of J-turn

J + turn, from the similarity to the shape of the letter J.

Questions about J-turn

What does J-turn mean?
J-turn means a 180-degree turn in a vehicle, where the vehicle starts in reverse and ends driving forwards so that the direction of travel remains the same.
What part of speech is J-turn?
J-turn is a noun.
What is the plural of J-turn?
The plural of J-turn is J-turns.

Words near J-turn in the dictionary

  1. J-shaped
  2. j-slur
  3. J-term
  4. J-terms
  5. J-Town
  6. J-turn
  7. J-turns
  8. j-word
  9. j-words
  10. J.
  11. J. Arthur

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: J-turn (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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Cite this entry: “J-turn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/j-turn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.