Word.ws English Dictionary

turned tail

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

Meaning of turn tail

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To turn away from someone or something, in preparation for running away; to reverse direction; to leave or flee.
    • A box-lobby lion or a Regent-street animal . . . will never bite, and, if you offer to attack him manfully, will fairly turn tail and sneak off.1838, Charles Dickens, “Some Particulars Concerning A Lion”, in Mudfog and Other Sketches

Questions about turned tail

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

Words near turned tail in the dictionary

  1. turned someone's crank
  2. turned someone's head
  3. turned something into an art form
  4. turned south
  5. turned square corners
  6. turned tail
  7. turned the air blue
  8. turned the boat
  9. turned the boat around
  10. turned the clock back
  11. turned the clocks back

Source and license

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