Word.ws English Dictionary

turned away

turned away is the simple past and past participle of turn away.

Meaning of turn away

Verb

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

  1. (literally, transitive) To rotate so as not to face someone or something.
    • Thereat the Elfe did blush in priuitee, / And turnd his face away; but she the same / Dissembled faire, and faynd to ouersee.1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. (intransitive, literally) To rotate oneself so as not to face someone or something.
  3. (literally, transitive) To bend or turn from a fixed course.
  4. (intransitive, literally) To bend or turn from a fixed course.
    • He met Luis Suarez's cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool's insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt...2012 May 5, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport
  5. (figuratively, transitive) To refuse to admit someone or accept something.
    • He was turned away at the border because he didn't have a valid visa.
    Synonyms:
    turn back
  6. (figuratively, transitive) To avert or ward off the occurrence or effects of.
    • to turn away disaster

See all 8 meanings of turn away

Questions about turned away

What is turned away the simple past and past participle of?
Turned away is the simple past and past participle of turn away.

Words near turned away in the dictionary

  1. turned against
  2. turned an honest penny
  3. turned around
  4. turned around one's finger
  5. turned aside
  6. turned away
  7. turned back
  8. turned back the clock
  9. turned coat
  10. turned down
  11. turned forth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turned away (page history and authors); turn away (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: “turned away.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turned_away. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.