U-turn

• u-turn

From U +‎ turn, from the similarity to the shape of the letter U.

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

U-turn (plural U-turns)

1. A turn in a vehicle carried out by driving in a semicircle in order to travel in the opposite direction.
   • 2025 May 14, Nicholas Barber, “'A miserable, apocalyptic tract': Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning could be 'the feel-bad film of the summer”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     What's disappointing about all this doom and gloom is that the franchise has made the kind of whiplashing U-turn you might see in its car-chase sequences.

2. (figuratively) A reversal of policy; an about-face, a backflip.

   The government have done a U-turn and are now supporting greater European integration instead of opposing it.

   • 2023 October 10, Senay Boztas, “Frans Timmermans urges European left to unite against right’s climate backlash”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, announced a major U-turn on the government’s climate commitments last month, pushing back the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers.

• Often used in the phrases do a U-turn or make a U-turn.

• uey (colloquial)

• → Japanese: Ｕターン (yūtān)
• → Korean: 유턴 (yuteon)

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

1. To turn a vehicle in a semicircle so as to face the opposite direction.
2. (intransitive) To shift from one opinion or decision to its opposite.
   • 2022 October 5, Rowena Mason, “Liz Truss promises ‘growth, growth and growth’ in protest-hit speech”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     She made the case for cutting taxes as “the right thing to do morally and economically”, despite having just U-turned over her decision to abolish the 45p top rate of income tax.

• bang a uey (New England)
• flip a bitch
• handbrake turn
• hang a Louie
• hang a Ralph
• hook a uey, hook a U-ie
• hang a uey
• moonshiner's turn
• three-point turn / K-turn
• Y-turn