turnouts

Noun

turnout (countable and uncountable, plural turnouts)

1. The act of coming forth.
2. The number or proportion of people who attend or participate in an event (especially an election) or are present at a venue.
   • Depending on the location of a restaurant, weekdays may equally experience low turnout.2012, The Hyperink Team, Essential Tools For Managing A Restaurant Business, Hyperink Inc, →ISBN
3. (US) A place to pull off a road.
   • When towing a trailer, use the turnouts to let faster traffic pass.

   Synonyms:

   lay-by

4. (US) A place where moveable rails allow a train to switch tracks; a set of points.
   • An article published recently in our associated weekly contemporary, The Railway Gazette, dealt at some length with the differences in construction and operation between civil and military railways, and explained that points and crossings are more commonly termed "turnouts" in military parlance.1943 September and October, “Military and Civil Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 257
5. (dated) A quitting of employment for the purpose of forcing increase of wages; a strike.
6. (dated) A striker.
   • Meanwhile on the eighteenth a party of soldiers dispersed a crowd in Over Darwen, and the following day a detachment came to protect the Hargreaves' large mill at Accrington, where one of the partners, anticipating a visit from the turnouts, had sworn in several hundred of the workpeople as special...2002, Brian Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns, page 86

See all 10 meanings of turnout