Word.ws English Dictionary

point of no return

point of no return noun: the point in an aircraft's flight when there is insufficient fuel to reverse direction and return to the place of origin.

Noun

point of no return (plural points of no return)

  1. The point in an aircraft's flight when there is insufficient fuel to reverse direction and return to the place of origin.
  2. (figuratively) The point in any process or sequence of events where some development becomes inevitable.
    • After Munich it became daily more evident that Hitler had passed the point of no return. With every burst of news from Europe the inevitability of war became more certain.1959, Roger Burlingame, I Have Known Many Worlds, page 216
    • [...] this trickle of loss going on relentlessly week by week will gradually reduce miscellaneous merchandise loadings on the railways to a point of no return, where the entire business must be abandoned to cut steeply mounting losses.1964 May, “News and Comment: Liner trains and the NUR”, in Modern Railways, page 290

point of no return meaning in Arabic

point of no return in Arabic

the point when it is no longer possible to stop the process
نُقْطَةُ اللَّاعَوْدَةِ nuqṭatu l-lāʕawdati, حُصِّلَ مَا فِي الصُّدُورِ ḥuṣṣila mā fī ṣ-ṣudūri

Synonyms of point of no return

All synonyms of point of no return

Forms of point of no return

pluralpoints of no return

Origin of point of no return

The expression originated in air navigation planning. The point along the planned flight path beyond which an aircraft will no longer be capable of returning to the takeoff airfield or an alternate airfield due to insufficient fuel is calculated before takeoff. This is mandatory for overwater flights or flights without alternates on route.

Questions about point of no return

What does point of no return mean?
Point of no return means the point in an aircraft's flight when there is insufficient fuel to reverse direction and return to the place of origin.
What is point of no return in Arabic?
Point of no return in Arabic is نُقْطَةُ اللَّاعَوْدَةِ (nuqṭatu l-lāʕawdati), حُصِّلَ مَا فِي الصُّدُورِ (ḥuṣṣila mā fī ṣ-ṣudūri). See Point of no return meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is point of no return?
Point of no return is a noun.
What is the plural of point of no return?
The plural of point of no return is points of no return.

Words near point of no return in the dictionary

  1. point of honour
  2. point of inevitability
  3. point of inflection
  4. point of inquiry
  5. point of interest
  6. point of no return
  7. point of order
  8. point of origin
  9. point of pride
  10. point of privilege
  11. point of purchase

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: point of no return (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-point of no return.wav.

Cite this entry: “point of no return.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/point_of_no_return. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.