Word.ws English Dictionary

turn tricks

turn tricks verb: to work as a prostitute, providing sexual services for money.

Verb

turn tricks (third-person singular simple present turns tricks, present participle turning tricks, simple past and past participle turned tricks)

  1. (intransitive, slang) To work as a prostitute, providing sexual services for money.
    • By 1996, she was a hooker sleeping in the streets or at ratty hotels in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, turning tricks to get her next bag of heroin.2004 March 21, Kevin Fagan, “The Homeless: Desperate search for Bridget—sister, mother, addict”, in San Francisco Chronicle, archived from the original on 14 Sep 2004
    • They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307

Synonyms of turn tricks

Forms of turn tricks

third-person singular presentturns tricks
present participleturning tricks
past participleturned tricks
pastturned tricks

Words formed from turn tricks

Questions about turn tricks

What does turn tricks mean?
Turn tricks means to work as a prostitute, providing sexual services for money.
What part of speech is turn tricks?
Turn tricks is a verb.
What is the past tense of turn tricks?
The past tense of turn tricks is turned tricks.

Words near turn tricks in the dictionary

  1. turn to custard
  2. turn to dust
  3. turn to good account
  4. turn together
  5. turn traitor
  6. turn tricks
  7. turn Turk
  8. turn turtle
  9. turn two
  10. turn under
  11. turn up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turn tricks (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: “turn tricks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn_tricks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.