Word.ws English Dictionary

volte-face

/vɒltˈfæs/

volte-face noun: a reversal of attitude, policy, or principle.

Noun

volte-face (plural volte-faces)

  1. A reversal of attitude, policy, or principle.
    • Psychoanalysis has sprung many surprises on us, performed more than one volte face before our indignant eyes.1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Psychoanalysis vs. Morality”, in Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 9
    • Then, on July 15, 1971, came Nixon's sudden announcement that Kissinger had just made a secret trip to Peking and that he himself had accepted Chou En-lai's invitation to visit the Chinese mainland sometime before May, 1972. This was instantly interpreted in chancelleries all over the world as a...1983, James C. H. Shen, “Beginnings of Endings”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 6
    Synonyms:
    about-face, U-turn
  2. A dramatic change in mood or tone.
    • Shakespeare often used volte-faces in the rhyming couplets at the end of his sonnets.

volte-face meaning in Tamil, Kannada and Vietnamese

volte-face in Tamil

உடனடி கொள்கை மாற்றம், நேர் எதிர்முகத் திருப்பம்

volte-face in Kannada

ಪೂರ್ಣ ಬದಲಾವಣೆ, ಪರಿವರ್ತನೆ, ವಿರುದ್ಧಾಭಿಪ್ರಾಯ

volte-face in Vietnamese

reversal of attitude, policy, or principle
trở mặt

Examples of volte-face in a sentence

  • This was instantly interpreted in chancelleries all over the world as a sign that the United States was about to execute a volte-face in its China policy.1983, James C. H. Shen, “Beginnings of Endings”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally...
  • Evidence of the volte-face can be seen along the line at places such as Radley, where mast piles are already sunk or lie discarded at the lineside.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My Weirdest and Wackiest Rover Yet”, in Rail, pages 67–68:

Synonyms of volte-face

Forms of volte-face

pluralvolte-faces
alternative formvolte face

Origin of volte-face

Borrowed from French volte-face.

Words that rhyme with volte-face

39 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about volte-face

What does volte-face mean?
Volte-face means a reversal of attitude, policy, or principle.
What is volte-face in Tamil?
Volte-face in Tamil is உடனடி கொள்கை மாற்றம், நேர் எதிர்முகத் திருப்பம். See Volte-face meaning in Tamil.
How do you use volte-face in a sentence?
This was instantly interpreted in chancelleries all over the world as a sign that the United States was about to execute a volte-face in its China policy.
What part of speech is volte-face?
Volte-face is a noun.
How do you pronounce volte-face?
Volte-face is pronounced /vɒltˈfæs/.
What is the plural of volte-face?
The plural of volte-face is volte-faces.

Words near volte-face in the dictionary

  1. voltatype
  2. voltatypes
  3. volte
  4. volte face
  5. volte faces
  6. volte-face
  7. volte-faces
  8. volted
  9. volter
  10. Volterra
  11. Volterra integral equation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: volte-face (page history and authors); volte-face (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); volte-face (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-volte-face.wav.

Cite this entry: “volte-face.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/volte-face. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.