The Phrasal Verb 'Turn Around' Explained
- Phrasal Verbs Explained
- Jun 20
- 13 min read
Updated: Jun 22
An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'turn around' from a native speaker, with lots of examples in context
Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them.
This post is all about the English phrasal verb 'turn around', which is one that you may know as it is used commonly by native speakers in everyday conversations. In the post, I will explain the different meanings that it has, including some useful applications of it to use in business English. Furthermore, I will give you lots of example sentences to show you the types of context in which this practical phrasal verb is used. So, without further ado, let's make a start....
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Click to jump to each one)
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THE BASICS
TURN AROUND: KEY INFORMATION
Usage | Common |
Number of meanings | 6 |
Past tense forms | Turned around / Turned around |
Separable? | Yes |
The first step in our exploration of the phrasal verb 'turn around' will be to look at 'turn' and 'around' as individual words and consider they mean on their own.
The verb 'to turn' is an extremely versatile word in English that can be used in many different ways and situations. It is perhaps used the most to talk about movement in a direction, either when this movement is circular or if there is a change in direction. Alternatively, we can also use 'to turn' to talk about changing something (often in phrasal verbs) and to flip something from one side to the other, among other things.
The Earth turns on its axis at a very high speed.
Carrie turned to face her mother.
Turn right at the traffic lights.
The weather is turning and winter is coming.
Christine turned her back on her friends.
The prepositional particle 'around' is not one that we see being used in phrasal verbs very often, especially when compared to particles like 'on' and 'up'. The particle 'around' is used as a preposition and adverb to denote different types of movement: in a circle, around the edge of something or moving to face the opposite direction. When used in phrasal verbs, 'around' can add ideas of movement in multiple directions or to different places (run around), wasting time (mess around), reversal (come around) and avoidance (get around), among others.
So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the rather splendid phrasal verb 'turn around'....
BONUS: Is it 'turn around' or 'turn round'?
As English learners, many of you may have noticed 'get round' being used as an alternative to 'get around'. It is possible therefore that you are wondering if there is any difference between the two forms and why some people use one and not the other? The simple answer is that there is no difference between them and you can use either of these. 'Get around' is used pretty much everywhere, however 'get round' is mainly used in British English...perhaps we are just too lazy to pronounce the extra 'a' here in the UK 🤷
MEANING 1: To rotate
CEFR Language Level | B1 - Intermediate |
Usage | Common |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To rotate, to spin, to turn |
Separable? | Yes |
Here we go then, let's start things off by considering the literal meaning of the combination of the words 'turn' and 'around' as outlined above, which is 'to rotate', or in other words 'to move in order to face a different direction'.
Nouns commonly used with this application....
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Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about this application of 'turn around' is the Earth (unless you believe that the Earth is flat of course). Our lovely little planet is constantly turning around on its axis in a circular direction, giving us morning, afternoon, evening and night. Examples of other nouns for things that turn around are records and discs, food in microwaves, cogs, wheels and clock hands.
My fan turned around slowly as it oscillated.
The windmill turned around steadily in the fresh breeze.
The clock's second hand turned around smoothly.
Isaac's toy top turned around rapidly on the floor.
John watched as the food turned around in the microwave as it cooked
In addition to physical objects, we can also use 'turn around' to describe when people and animals rotate in a circular direction. Most of the time, we use it to refer to when they turn in a half turn (180°) to face the opposite direction from the one that they were facing before. Moreover, it is also possible to hear it in reference to complete turns (360°) and anything else in between as long as there is some rotation and you are not facing the same way. as when you started.
Beth heard a noise behind her and turned around.
When I called Mike's name, he turned around and smiled.
Bingo the dog turned around three times before lying down.
I told Anthony to turn around and face the wall.
As I walked past, Phil suddenly turned around and stared at me.
The dancer turned around gracefully on stage.
Turn around slowly; I want to see all of your outfit!
For those among you who love your grammar, you may have noticed that in all of the example sentences so far, 'turn around' is used intransitively. In other words, the thing or person that is turning around is the subject and we are not stating who or what causes this spinning action.
We can of course also use this application to talk about making or causing something to face a different direction. Typically, we do this when referring to household items and furniture that we can physically pick up and move so that they face a different direction.
In addition, we use it for vehicles and modes of transport, however we when we do this, a movement in the opposite or return direction is also usually implied.
Amanda turned the chair around to face the window.
Carly turned the sign around so the message was visible.
I turned the picture frame around because it was crooked.
Malcolm turned the box around to read the label.
At 9am, the shopkeeper turned the door sign around to display the word "open".
They turned the table around in order to fit it better into the room.
Lydia turned the mirror around to avoid looking into it.
The driver turned the car around and went back home.
The plane turned around shortly after take-off.
If you kids do not stop arguing, I will turn the car around and we will head back home.
MEANING 2: To drastically improve something
CEFR Language Level | B2 - Upper intermediate |
Usage | Common |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To improve, to rectify, to redress, to straighten out |
Separable? | Yes |
Our second meaning of 'turn around' is 'to drastically improve something' and is one that you may often hear in both business and everyday English.
Nouns commonly used with this application....
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To be able to understand this application a bit better, we need to use our imagination to think about how something progressing over time as a sort of journey. As with vehicles, which move in a direction towards a geographical direction, we can also imagine the progress of something moving over time towards an expected future result or outcome. If we change the direction of this movement so that a different result is expected, we can say that we '"turned it around".
You should note that this is typically used when the result of something is completely changed from an expected negative outcome to an expected positive one.
Most commonly, you will hear this application when talking about businesses, organisations and financial economies. If someone turns a business around, he or she makes changes to the business to reverse it's fortune, changing it from a company that is losing money or failing into a successful company that makes money.
The new CEO turned the company around in just one year.
Joe and Kathy hired a consultant to help turn around their declining sales.
Charlotte turned the struggling restaurant around and made it profitable.
We need a solid strategy to turn this project around.
An emergency loan helped them turn the business around.
Outside of the business world, this application of 'turn around' can be used for anything that is declining or not going well over a period of time. Perhaps the most frequent scenarios are to talk about sports matches and life in general. If something happens to turn a sports game around, the team that is losing at an early stage of the game will score goals or points to take the lead and therefore completely reverse the outcome of the game.
Likewise, if something turns your life around, it completely transforms your life from one that is hard or unhappy into a happy and healthy life. It is of course also possible to turn your own life around, often by hard work and determination.
His leadership turned the team around after a losing season.
The coach turned the program around and took them to the championships.
The introduction of the substitute turned the game around and the team went from being 1-0 down to 2-1 ahead.
After years of being stuck in the same job with no prospects, I decided to turn my life around and started a university degree.
MEANING 3: To change the perspective of something
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Medium |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To change perspective |
Separable? | Yes |
Let's move on to our third meaning of 'turn around' now, which is rarer than the first two that we have looked at and means 'to change the perspective of something'.
This usage is a nice and simple one, which links nicely to the first two and simply just means 'to see something from another person's perspective or from another angle'. In other words, 'to change the way you view something'.
Furthermore, we can also use this one to mean to change the way you think about something or approach it, often to give you a different answer to the one you already have.
Try to turn around the situation and see it from Claire's point of view.
When I turned the issue around, I quickly realised I was partly to blame.
If we turn the argument around, his actions might actually start to make sense.
Let’s turn it around for a second; what if they were right all along and we were wrong?
You have to turn your thinking around if you want to see the full picture.
MEANING 4: To supply or produce something
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Common - Business English |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To supply, to produce, to generate |
Separable? | Yes |
For our fourth meaning of 'turn around', we are heading back to the world of business English again as this one means 'to produce' or 'to supply'.
Nouns commonly used with this application....
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With this application, we can refer to any output from a business, whether that be a manufactured product or a service. If a business turns something around, then it creates or produces it.
The thing to note with this application however is that when we use it, we normally state a time period in which the business must or had to provide the product or service. Therefore, you will find that speakers will mainly use 'turn around' when they want to talk about when a business does this in a very short period of time, which is often viewed as challenging, difficult or impressive. I would say that in other, more normal, circumstances when time is not such an important factor, an alternative verb like 'to produce' would be preferred instead.
We can turn around the report by Friday if everyone sticks to the schedule.
The design team turned around the mock-ups in just 24 hours in order to win the order.
How fast can you turn around the edits on this video?
There is just no way that we can turn an order of that size around in a week.
Our bakers can turn around large orders of over 500 loaves of bread in less than a day.
Thanks for turning that proposal around so quickly; we really needed it.
MEANING 5: To prepare something for use
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Medium |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To prepare, to clean up |
Separable? | Yes |
The next meaning of 'turn around' that we will look at is 'to prepare something for people to use' and is specifically heard when the thing being prepared has previously been used by other people.
Nouns commonly used with this application....
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Have you ever taken a flight before and noticed how quickly the flight crew prepare the airplane after the previous flight so that it is ready for you and your fellow passengers to board? It is normally very quick, particularly with low-cost airlines, however the time is not the important thing here; what is important is that this action of preparing the aircraft for use after previous passengers is known as 'turning around'. We say in this situation that the flight crew and ground staff are turning the plane around ready for the next flight.
We are not just limited to airplanes with this usage though and we can use it for any time something is cleaned or tidied up after being used, ready for the next people to use it. You should note however that we only tend to use it to talk about commercial settings, i.e. when someone is paying for a service.
The cleaning staff needs at least 30 minutes to turn the hotel room around before the next guest arrives.
We have to turn around the conference hall quickly before the next session starts.
The flight crew turned around the aircraft in record time so it could depart on schedule.
There's only a short window to turn the rental car around before the next customer picks it up.
The theatre employees turned the dressing rooms around between shows to accommodate the new cast.
MEANING 6: Used to quote what someone said or did
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Common |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To say, to tell |
Separable? | No |
After reading the title of this section, you are likely to be thinking that the next meaning of 'turn around' is 'to quote what someone said or did'. Do not be fooled by that as this is not the case; we actually use 'turn around' as a way of quoting what someone did or said. I imagine that this sounds very strange to you, so let me explain.....
Often in informal conversations, English native speakers use the phrasal verb 'turn around' + the word 'and + a verb' to quote what another person has said. This is particularly the case when the person says something unexpected, shocking or without caring about how other people would react to it. It is used as a way of adding extra dramatic emphasis to a story or gossip etc and I hear it in informal conversations ALL THE TIME.
I have absolutely no idea why we use it in this way, especially as most of the time nobody is physically turning around in the true sense, but we do. Any ideas, please write them in the comments and enlighten me!
Out of nowhere, Sally turned around and said, "Let’s move to Spain!".
I made a suggestion and he turned around and snapped, "Nobody asked you".
I helped Barry all day and he turned around and said thatI hadn't done anything.
I was trying to be nice, and Mary turned around and snapped, "Why are you even here?"
Last night, my mum turned around and told me that she and my Dad are getting divorced.
George turned around to his boss and said, 'You know what? I quit".
Then Eric turned around and yelled, 'Don’t ever talk to me like that again!'.
BONUS: The noun 'turnaround'
I couldn't finish the post without writing about the noun 'turnaround' that was derived from the phrasal verb.
When used as a noun, 'turnaround' has several meanings, all of which come directly from the phrasal verb meanings that we have already discussed in the post.
The first and most common one links back to the second meaning of the phrasal verb, 'to drastically improve something' and is therefore used to describe a big improvement in something, where the expected outcome changes from a negative one to a positive.
After several difficult years, the company's financial turnaround surprised all the investors.
Pamela's health showed a dramatic turnaround after the new treatment.
After a series of losses, Chelsea FC's sudden turnaround was remarkable.
Another fairly common meaning of 'turnaround' is directly linked to the fourth application that we covered and is used to talk about the time that it takes to produce or supply something. Like with the phrasal verb, this one is common in business English to talk about commercial transactions and orders etc.
The standard turnaround for printing orders is 72 hours.
Please note that due to high demand, the turnaround time for custom furniture has increased to three weeks.
The customer was impressed by our quick turnaround on the design revisions.
Lastly, you may also hear the noun 'turnaround' in reference to the fifth meaning in the post (to make something ready for use) as it can be used to talk about the period of time spent preparing something for other people to use. This is especially common with airplanes.
The plane had a quick turnaround at Heathrow Airport before its next flight.
Ship turnarounds at the port have become faster thanks to the new loading system.
We need to reduce the turnaround of rental cars to keep up with the increasing demand.
We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new about the phrasal verb 'turn around'. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts.
Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'turn around'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!!
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THE END
This page is very helpful for those who are learning English.
Thanks a lot for your great work!
My husband turned around and said: "I'm not going to the meeting this evening."
muy util gracias