Word.ws English Dictionary

turtles all the way down

turtles all the way down noun: a situation of infinite regress; a circular explanation or model.

Noun

turtles all the way down pl (plural only)

  1. (colloquial, plural, plural-only) A situation of infinite regress; a circular explanation or model.

Origin of turtles all the way down

From a supposed explanation of what supports the World Turtle that supports the planet Earth.

Questions about turtles all the way down

What does turtles all the way down mean?
Turtles all the way down means a situation of infinite regress; a circular explanation or model.
What part of speech is turtles all the way down?
Turtles all the way down is a noun.

Words near turtles all the way down in the dictionary

  1. turtlenecked
  2. turtlenecks
  3. turtler
  4. turtlers
  5. turtles
  6. turtles all the way down
  7. turtles down
  8. turtles up
  9. Turtlese
  10. turtleshell
  11. turtleshells

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turtles all the way down (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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