Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Turn back   /tərn bæk/   Listen
Turn back

verb
1.
Retrace one's course.  Synonyms: backtrack, double back.
2.
Go back to a previous state.  Synonyms: regress, retrovert, return, revert.
3.
Force to go away; used both with concrete and metaphoric meanings.  Synonyms: chase away, dispel, drive away, drive off, drive out, run off.  "Drive away bad thoughts" , "Dispel doubts" , "The supermarket had to turn back many disappointed customers"
4.
Hold back, as of a danger or an enemy; check the expansion or influence of.  Synonyms: arrest, check, contain, hold back, stop.  "Check the growth of communism in South East Asia" , "Contain the rebel movement" , "Turn back the tide of communism"
5.
Turn inside out or upside down.  Synonyms: invert, reverse.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Turn back" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Caribs, and prevent their incursions upon those innocent islanders to whom he had made so many promises of protection. But he fell ill, and for a short time at least was wholly unconscious. The officers in command took occasion of his illness, and of their right to manage the vessels, to turn back to the city of Isabella. He arrived there "as one half dead," and his explorations and discoveries for this voyage were thus brought to an end. To his great delight he found there his brother Bartholomew, whom he had not seen for eight years. Bartholomew had accompanied ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... causing sickness, a small proa, containing the image of a man and provisioned for a long voyage, is allowed to drift away with wind and tide. As it is being launched, the people cry, "O sickness, go from here; turn back; what do you here in this poor land?" Three days after this ceremony a pig is killed, and part of the flesh is offered to Dudilaa, who lives in the sun. One of the oldest men says, "Old sir, I beseech you make well the grand-children, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... that she can still be," said the old lady. "She will turn back again, my dear. Never fear. I don't think I could die easy if I did not believe ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... would be their last. Would the infantry never come? Would there be any sense in just sitting there until a German shell annihilated them if the infantry never arrived? Had they been pushed back by a German rush? Should he take it upon himself to turn back? McKnutt's ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... looking at the lake, "we must turn back, I guess, for there is neither a bridge nor a boat to take us across ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... moved rapidly about, up and down, past Cavite five times. Admiral Montojo came out in his flagship, the Reina Christina, to attack the Olympia. The Olympia poured such a storm of shot at her that she was compelled to turn back toward the harbor. But the Reina Christina had met her doom. As she turned, a huge shell from the Olympia struck her, set her on fire, and killed her captain and many of her men. Admiral Montojo changed ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes

... But in her eyes he found compassion and such tenderness as awed him; and then, as a light is puffed out, they were the eyes of a friendly stranger. He understood, for an instant, that of necessity it was decreed time must turn back and everything, even Rudolph Musgrave, be just as it had been when he first saw Patricia. For they had made nothing of their lives; and so, they ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... about gardens and orange-trees (the orange-trees are the best part of the decoration; even now the great fruit hangs in the green leaves); and when I had described Italy, and you had described all the castles and the islands, we could turn back and discuss our religious differences. But I doubt if any good would come of this correspondence. You see, I have got my work to do, and you have got yours, and, notwithstanding all you say, I do not believe you to be unable to write the history of the lake and ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... blood mantling her face. Jasper was sure that he had never seen any one so lovely as he appeared suddenly in sight around a bend in the trail. He was walking fast with an axe over his shoulder, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Lois before him. At first he was half tempted to turn back, lest his presence might not be desired. He did not wish to have the appearance of spying upon those before him. But before he had time to decide, Dora ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... Billy's strength gave out before they had reached the head of the plane, and he was obliged to stop and rest. Indeed, he was compelled often to do this during the remainder of the journey, but he would not listen to any suggestion that he should turn back. The air was still very impure, although they could at times feel the fresh current from the shaft at ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... ordered by Palmer to recross the river, and to support the artillery on the hill on the west bank. The troops under Miller were then advancing through the cornfield, driving the enemy, and as his right flank was fully protected, he had no inclination to turn back, and he ordered the troops forward. One of the enemy's batteries was posted in a wood just beyond the cornfield to the front. It was keeping up a brisk fire on Miller's advance, when he ordered his men to charge this battery, which they did, capturing three guns. At the ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... good pastures there, and every day tramped long distances to feed on the moss. There was not time to pitch tents. The children had to lie on the snowy ground and sleep when the reindeer stopped to graze. The girl often sighed and complained of being so tired that she must turn back to the valley. Nevertheless she went along to avoid being left without ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer. He was reproached and confused,—troubled by the mere possibility of the Captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... take it to her house this evening. I have to go to thank her for my handkerchief that she sent back. Do you want me to—no!" with a sudden turn back to ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... life. Unconscious, but higher; perhaps immortal. Thus it would continue to bloom when I had looked my last on it; wind and rain and sunlight would never stain, never tinge, its sacred purity; the savage Indian, though he sees little to admire in a flower, yet seeing this one would veil his face and turn back; even the browsing beast crashing his way through the forest, struck with its strange glory, would swerve aside and pass on without harming it. Afterwards I heard from some Indians to whom I described it that the flower I had discovered was called Hata; also that they ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... of a winter's day. Another time she had just arrived in a strange city to pay a visit to friends. When she was already on the stairs leading to their quarters, she noticed that a search was being conducted in their apartments. To turn back was too late. Without a second's hesitation she boldly rang the bell at the door of a lower floor, and walked in with her traveling bag to unknown people. She frankly explained the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... man to turn back from any task to which he had set his hand, and in Lauder he had a colleague ready to follow him through thick and thin. The two were as unlike in appearance as they could well be: Clapperton was six feet high and broad in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... remembered that he had left on a ledge in the cave—that we had used as a shelf for the storage of various small matters during our sojourn there—a little volume that he dearly loved: the Meditations of Thomas a Kempis. He was full of remorse for his forgetfulness, and did not ask that we should turn back to get his book for him; yet his distress over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the heart to ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... work altogether. The ceaseless dripping of the rain made the whole scene as cheerless as it well could be. The snow had turned to cold dull rain, which was far more depressing. I wished the mineral springs at Borsek had never been discovered. It was too late to turn back to St Miklos, where I devoutly wished myself, so I had nothing to do but plod on with my waterproof tight round me. It was impossible to go fast, for in places the mud was very deep and the road ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... went back through twilight. He knew now why Barboux had lagged behind on the Richelieu, in scorn of discipline. The man must be entrusted with some secret missive of Montcalm's, and, being puffed up with it, had in a luckless hour struck out a line of his own. To turn back now would mean his ruin; might end in his standing up to be shot with his back to a wall. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... perceived. Some of the foremost ran on to a spot of high ground near at hand, whence they could see in every direction, but not a figure was moving in the landscape. In the meantime our skipper came up, and ordered us to turn back and beat about ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... plenty of time," she added, more composedly, "but I think I must go now, for I have a package to get from another store. I hope, though, this hasn't been a 'transformation scene' that will turn back to marble or—blankness," she concluded, with a nervous laugh as she glanced towards the curtained ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... they were acting imprudently, they could not resist the temptation of going on farther, the whole party looking out among the trees; but nothing could they discover to enlighten them on the subject. They were about to turn back, when Ben Tarbox, who was a little way off on the extreme right of the line, shouted that he saw a deer feeding at some distance ahead, and, holding his gun ready to fire, he ran on in the direction he pointed. Presently the report of his gun was heard, and the rest of the party hurrying up, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston

... There were practically no out-sizes in tunics, but plenty of the men were not merely out-size, but odd-sized. Some little fellows looked as if they were wearing father's coat, and there were others who looked as if they were wearing that of baby brother. Some had to turn back the cuffs two or three times, while others had at least a foot of wrist and forearm showing. But the breeches! Oh, my Aunt Sarah! Some were able to tuck the bottoms into their boots, while others had to wind puttees above their knees. There were men who couldn't bend ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... blows-out and his bachelorship,—for single men always arrive at the apex of haut ton more easily than married,—he became the very glass of fashion; and many were the tight apprentices, even at the west end of the town, who used to turn back in admiration of Bachelor Bill, when of a Sunday afternoon he drove down his varment gig to his snug little box on the borders of Turnham Green. Bill's happiness was not, however, wholly without alloy. The ladies of pleasure are always so excessively angry when a man does ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... I ask the reader to turn back to his Bible. In our sense of the word did our Lord say, "He that believeth not shall be damned"? Most certainly not. He said that he should be condemned for wilfully disbelieving, but He did not say to what he should be condemned, ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... to the Union Station to find Kathleen Pierce. She's in a green touring-car. She's just run down a trained nurse. Have him interview her; ask her why she didn't turn back after she struck the woman; whether she doesn't know the law. Find out if she's going to the hospital. Get her estimate of how fast she was going. We'll print anything she says. Then he's to go to St. James Hospital, and ask about the nurse. I'll give ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... generous lad sometimes to forget his mother's lessons and his own promises, and commence that slow, gradual, downward course, which nearly always begins before we are aware, and from which it is then so hard to turn back; and as many may learn from his experience, and so save themselves much shame and their friends much anguish, it is better that Frank's history ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... you were asleep this morning," Jack replied. "A chap came along in a launch and I asked him all about it. He said he had just come from the Andes, and advised me to turn back." ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... Power felt that he had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He had found his way into one of those branch avenues leading from the great road of his imperial success. He was man enough to know when to turn back. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of his hut, making magic with a horsehair and a snakeskin, and some ground-up glass. Jean Malin, told him everything that had happened, about the bull, and how it had changed itself into a man and had come to visit the lady, and about the magic words, and how he had forced the man to turn back into a bull again. "And now," said he, "I am afraid, for I think he ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... L168,000 a year would be the price that the measure would entail on a portion of the inhabitants of the native state of Mysore on this single article of export. But this direct cash loss is far from being all; and if the reader will turn back to the Introductory Chapter, and to that on Coffee Planting in Coorg, he will there find an explanation of the extraordinary effect produced by the introduction of capital into the rural districts of India, and of the remarkable effects it produces on the prosperity ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... reached, and in the cool shade of the chestnut-trees the Duchess's courage returned. After all, it was her right to enter any Wirtemberg palace, she told herself; yet a chill foreboding gripped her. Should she turn back? ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... talk as you like on the road," he said. "Time is too precious for talking here. How do we know Lecount may not think better of it? How do we know she may not turn back before ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... they might fall into the hands of Spaniards, who would imprison them; or they might be killed by fiercer tribes than any yet encountered, and in either case their discoveries would be lost. So they decided to turn back. ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... remain where he was while we went without him, to which he at last yielded with extreme unwillingness. He had frequently shown us the guide's marks, and now earnestly cautioned me to advance only as they point, and turn back if ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... the low descending sun warned of the approach of nightfall, and the boys' watches showed 7 o'clock, Lieutenant Summers again consulted with Captain Folsom, who presently rejoined the boys with word that they were going to turn back and cruise offshore and that the boys in an hour or two could be landed, not at Starfish Cove, but at their own boathouse, thus involving only a short trip ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... given up hope of the defeat of the Persian. Now he prayed devoutly there might be no useless shedding of blood. If only he could turn back and not behold the humiliation of Athens! Of the fate of the old-time friends—Democrates, Cimon, Hermione—he tried not to think. No doubt Hermione was the wife of Democrates. More than a year had ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... to blow out the lamp in the snow-house. All the time that the sun is travelling south, clever combinations of cat's-cradle are played by the mothers and the children to entangle the sun in the meshes and so prevent its being entirely lost by continuing south and south and forgetting entirely to turn back to the land of the anxiously-waiting Eskimo. The boys, by playing a cup-and-ball game, help, too, to hasten its return. When the sun forgets you for six months, you become fearful lest you have lost his ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the sheriff's wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion nor flinching. Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also attributed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... the situation and humiliated by what I had said, I was on the point of leaving at once. But a moment of reflection caused me to turn back. I had forced a quarrel upon Marguerite and the cause for my anger she perhaps did not comprehend. If I left now it would be impossible to return, and if I did not come back, there would be explanations to make to Zimmern and perhaps an ending of my association ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... him, "Do you think that we would look for the home of the only one we fear? He is our only danger. From all other enemies we can run away, but from him no one can run. He strikes and there we lie. Turn back; go home. Do not look for the place of that ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... just now when Jeffrey spoke that way. Now I know what it was. It was the call of life to everybody to face life, to take our souls in our hands and go forward. I thought I could turn back. I can't. God, or life won't let ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... Ocean, which the coast savages, almost as ignorant of the geography of the interior as the Europeans themselves, declared lay just beyond the mountains. In 1586, we find Ralph Lane, governor of Raleigh's ill-fated colony, leading his men up the Roanoke River for a hundred miles, only to turn back disheartened at the rapids and falls, which necessitated frequent portages through the forest jungles. Twenty years later (1606), Christopher Newport and the redoubtable John Smith, of Jamestown, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that, hereafter, no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted." And the Duke, whom even Napoleon with all his legions had been powerless to turn back, was compelled to retreat before the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... to himself, "for if he intended to shoot me he would have turned the other way; for the sound of his gun would be probably heard by some of the coast-guard, and they could not fail to see him running away. At any rate," he muttered, "I am not going to turn back after such a chase as ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... forever turn back, as if the application of any essential truth were finished. The child walks by faith. The childhood of the world walked by faith, and left in the Bible the evidence of things that are not seen but are eternal. The Suffrage movement has a quarrel ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling you an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years old, when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run on before, and old Jeanie remembered they might come too near a dangerous mill-lade. She called to them to turn back. Maidie heeded her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and would have been lost, had her sister not pulled her back, saving her life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on Isabella to 'give it her' for spoiling her favorite's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... deepening fast; the katydids called back and forth from the wayside bushes. Evelina met nobody for some distance. Then she saw a man coming towards her, and her heart stood still, and she was about to turn back, for she thought for a minute it was the young minister. Then she saw it was his father, and she went on slowly, with her eyes downcast. When she met him she looked up and said good-evening, gravely, and would have passed on, but ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... would pause each time at this elbow and turn back. It seemed as if he knew that particular branch held his prey, and yet its crookedness each time threw him out. He would not give it up, but went over his course again ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... we do with these?" Walter inquired. "We don't want to turn back yet, and they are too heavy to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... to turn back. Life was a simple thing to him. There were no pros and cons in his philosophy. Yet he watched every turn of that car, always on the alert, always ready to spring aside into the bushes if it stopped. That man had meant ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... the engineer of the first train had joined them. "You'd better turn back and go the other way," said the conductor. "If you go up there, the Yanks ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... Philologus; in time turn back, I say: In Sensual Suggestion's steps see that thou tread no more; And though the frailty of the flesh hath made thee fall full sore, And to deny with outward lips thy Lord and God most dear, The same to 'stablish with consent of conscience stand in fear. Thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... and all the Frenchmen about here, were once prairie-wolves, and that, living so near the white people, they grow, after a time, to be like them, and learn to talk and dress like them. And then, when they get to be old, they turn back into prairie-wolves again, and that all the wolves that the officers bait with their dogs used to ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... discipline, and return to a satin-upholstered life—his cigarettes, his wine-dinners, his liquors, and his "rotten feeling" mornings after—then to his morphin and to his certain degradation. And why should this be? Time must turn back the hands on her dial thirty-three years ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... turn back and clear the path," he reflected. "The cave-in surely can't reach farther than the stone. This time I'll make the roof stronger. I can be thankful it didn't drop all ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... telling Faith to go on by himself, and saying that "he should be only a drag upon him." Faith accordingly left Works in the ale-house, and went on. He had not gone far before he began to feel faint, and thought he had better turn back and wait for Works. He suited the action to the word, and finding Works in an advanced state of beer, fell to, and even surpassed that worthy in his potations. They then set to work and fought lustily, and would have done each other a mortal injury had not a Policeman providentially arrived, ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... nightfall, and hired a bed there for sixpence. Early next morning I set forward again. By this time the impulse had died out of me, but I still walked forward, playing with my intention, always telling myself that I could relinquish it and turn back to Falmouth, cheating—yes, I fear deliberately cheating—myself with the assurance until more than half the journey lay behind me, and to turn back would be worse than pusillanimous. At St. Austell a carrier offered me a lift, and brought me to Liskeard. Thence I walked forward again, ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... though the whole nation were rushing towards the edge of the precipice which overhung the bottomless pit, like a herd of frightened horses on the prairie, and these men with their unaided hands turned them back. It would be impossible for one man to turn back a whole army in mad flight—he would necessarily be swept away in their rush; but this is precisely what the expression attributes to the exertions of Elijah and John. The one turned Israel back to cry, Jehovah, He is God; the other turned the whole land back ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... you have, Grace Loveday, two can play at that game," said Mrs. Darke composedly. "There, I have left her enough to turn back. What hair it is! Feel the weight of it! There's not another head of the mouse-colour to match your Lady's in the kingdom," she added, smoothing out the severed tresses with the satisfaction of a connoisseur. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tension of the friar's thought and speech wearied him. Just now he was almost glad that his companion should depart so suddenly; but as he watched him he saw him stop, as if he had forgotten something, and then turn back, searching for some object in the bosom ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... me," the old woman broke in cheerfully. "I'll be no drag on you. If you want granny, granny's not too old to travel; and if you don't want her, why she can look after the cottage, and have an English home ready for you whenever you turn back to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... valleys, of the Adirondacks, in whose shadows Champlain and Brule and Father Jogues fought with the Iroquois and suffered torture, and of the snow-capped Rockies at whose feet Chevalier de la Verendrye was obliged to turn back, but also of the tops of the white hills near the Atlantic coast, which I have often seen lighted at sunrise while the lower slopes and valleys were in darkness or shadow—hills touched by the French, as by that rising ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... are now!" and they saw at the foot of the gang-plank two men talking with Big George. They saw Balt point the strangers carelessly to the office, whence he had seen Boyd disappearing a few moments before, and turn back to his stevedores; then they ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... is as night that disperses when light is alive in the air. The bow of your godhead is broken, the arm of your conquest is stayed; Though ye call down God to bear token, for fear of you none is afraid. Will ye turn back times, and the courses of stars, and the season of souls? Shall God's breath dry up the sources that feed time full as it rolls? Nay, cry on him then till he show you a sign, till he lift up a rod; Hath he made not the nations to know him of old if indeed he be God? Is no heat of him ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... snow fell thick, and the snow fell fast. The hills and the valleys, the hedges and hollows were white. The paths were all hidden, and there were drifts like mountains on the king's highway. The harper stumbled and the harper fell, but he would not turn back; and as he traveled ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay

... thence to the straits of Magellan, without touching at Brazil, or any other part of the coast of South America, and entered into these straits in the month of December, having contrary winds, and very cold weather. Under these difficulties, the soldiers entreated him to turn back, which he refused, and went into a haven on the south side of the straits, in lat. 53 deg. S. where he ordered Roderigo de Isla to land, with 60 of the people, to explore the country; but the people mutinied against Alcazava, and slew him; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... cross. It often eluded him as he puzzled a way through the winding gray-walled streets. More than once he was forced to turn back, to make laborious circuits. But never for long was the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... looking about him, uncertain whether to go on or turn back, a man approached him from a house that stood at the furthest point of the bay, and saluted him ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... filling the after-deck floated him up. After that he had to lie on his stomach for some time, holding to a ring-bolt, getting his breath now and then, and swallowing salt water. He struggled farther on his hands and knees, too frightened and distracted to turn back. In this way he reached the after-part of the wheelhouse. In that comparatively sheltered spot he ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... he may reach Rosmin; but, as soon as he sees these horses and this road, he will instantly turn back. 'Shall I trust myself,' he'll say, 'in a district where sand runs between one's legs like water, and where mice are put into harness? The ground is ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... received the advance in good order and made every preparation for a suitable reception of the foe. At this time many thousand stragglers, many of whom had never before heard the sound of musketry, turned their backs to the enemy, and neither threats or persuasion could induce them to turn back. The timely arrival of Gen. Grant, who had hastened up from Savannah, led to the adoption of measures that put a stop to this uncalled-for flight from the battle ground. A strong guard was placed across the thoroughfare, with orders ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... how he did, and so on. Then I asked if he waur in want of a guide over the hills any way. The thing here set up a great rollickin' horse laugh, that frightened my father worse than anything he said; but he durst not turn back for fear he might follow, and happen to catch him as he ran, so he stood still, dithering like a top all ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... exercise courtesy. Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... the utmost alacrity. But in crossing the Apennines Antonius' army suffered severely from the rough December weather. Though they met with no opposition, they found it hard enough to struggle through the snow, and realized what danger they would have had to face if Vitellius had not happened to turn back. Certainly chance helped the Flavian generals quite as often as their own strategy. Here they came across Petilius Cerialis,[162] who had been enabled by his knowledge of the country to elude Vitellius' outposts, disguised as a peasant. As he was a near relative of Vespasian and ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... and almost panicky apprehension, he was not going to act impulsively or thoughtlessly. He knew that if he could only present a convincing case to his superiors, they would forgive him his presumption. If he made a bungle it might go hard with him. Anyway, he could not, or would not, turn back now. ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... men do, I should sooner have learned the pleasures and pains of passion, the germ of which I carried in myself; but everything in me assumed an extraordinary character. The warmth of imagination, my bashfulness and solitude, caused me to turn back upon myself. For want of a real object, by the power of my vague desires, I evoked a phantom which never quitted me more. I know not whether the history of the human heart furnishes another example of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... have been inspired with a prophetic foresight of her present position, and warned her against it. Those awful words came burning into her mind as when they seemed to issue like the voice of a spirit from the depths of the confessional:—"If ever you should yield to his love, and turn back from this heavenly marriage to follow him, you will accomplish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... long length of meads, and in due time arrived at the back of Rook's Gate, where the path joined the high road. A hedge divided the public way from the cottage garden. Jim drew up at this point and said, 'Your road is straight on: I turn back here.' ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... take it as unkind that you turn back almost the very moment I join you. I seem to have scared ride out of you if not out of your creature; but do as you please. I'll ride on, now I'm out. I don't want to force myself on ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... moments earlier Jessie had declared that they must turn back. They had gone farther up the river than they had ever ventured before, and she was troubled at the thought that Donald might be waiting. John Egerton felt chagrined at her evident anxiety to return. He could not shut ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... in a desperate resolve to meet a lecture engagement, I walked across the railroad trestle at Elmira, New York, and when I was halfway over I heard shouts of warning to turn back, as a train was coming. The trestle was very high at that point, and I realized that if I turned and faced an oncoming train I would undoubtedly lose my nerve and fall. So I kept on, as rapidly as I could, accompanied by the shrieks of those ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... realization that we were not appreciated at home, we often talked of running away and going out West to fight Indians, but we never did. I remember once two of us started for the Far West, and got nearly as far as Oak Grove Cemetery, when—the dusk of evening impending—we decided to turn back and give our parents just one more chance to ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb

... that the exertion and hurry of the movement might be injurious to them in the state in which they were supposed to be. In the kingdom of Pannonia all enceinte women were in such veneration, that a man meeting one on the road was obliged, under penalty of a fine, to turn back and accompany and protect her to her place of destination. The Catholic Church has in all times exempted pregnant wives from fasts. The Egyptians decreed, and in most Christian countries the law at the present time obtains, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... thought of Jack Dalhousie, lying on his back, but with open eyes which did not cease to question her; of poor Dr. Vivian, even now awaiting her word with trusting eyes which did not question anything; and she saw that to turn back now would be like a physical fracture somehow, like breaking her leg, and that the moment she had said she would, she would have to cry again, and afterwards she would be quite sick. And then she looked at Hugo, who was so manly and sure, who must be right, no ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... arrangement can be made better; very good, by shuffiing the cards you may make as many arrangements as you wish and eventually arrive at the ideal routine. And by keeping a memorandum of preceding arrangements you can always turn back to the older routine—if that appears the best after all ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... I shall turn back and try to trace the influence which my father had on my upbringing, and I shall recall as well as I can the impressions that he left on my mind in my childhood, and later in the melancholy days of my early manhood, which happened to coincide with the radical ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... caught words, such as—"Let go, or by Heaven—!" then a furious laugh and other words which seemed to be—"In five minutes the Kaffirs will be here. In ten you will be dead. Can I help it if they kill you after I have warned you to turn back?" ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... miles, and were about to turn back, when, unexpectedly they came in sight of a little cabin ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... camp, an' this's the nearest way; but, ef you're afraid, we'll turn back. That warn't nothin' ter hurt, though, it did sound kind er skeery. Ther shortest way's always ther best in this country, so let's go ahead," ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... his companion's words had brought up a thought that was full of horror; and for a moment he was about to order his blacks to turn back. But ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... guilty. She would probably get roundly scolded if the grave Sisters learned of her talks with me, and very likely I should win their hearty contempt. But I did not turn back. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... the other favorites of our childhood days, together with the stories that are told to the children in the four corners of the world. While these will be read to our boys and girls before they are able to read for themselves, they will turn back again and again to this department as they grow older. There is perpetual youth in the tales evolved by a ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... Now, Sir, turn back to the Massachusetts tables of production, and you will see that it is these automatic allies and co-operators, and these powers of nature, thus employed and placed under human direction, which have come, with such prodigious effect, to man's aid, in the great ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... the scouts. They return unsuccessful—forced to do so by hunger. They saw a very large river flowing into the Lake, but did not come across a single soul. Killed our last calf, and turn back for four hard days' travel to Chitunkue's. I send men on before us to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... heavy swords upon their shoulders. He followed them on and on through the wood and he heard their whispering becoming louder and louder, and then he thought that as he went on the shadows, instead of slipping before him, began to turn back and go past and surround him. Then he heard a voice just under the ground at his feet say, "Shout—shout out your own name, Son of King Connal!" Then the King's Son shouted out his own name and the whispers ceased ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... of Maldon is that of Achilles:[5] "Xanthus, what need is there to prophesy of death? Well do I know that it is my doom to perish here, far from my father and mother; but for all that I will not turn back, until I give the Trojans their fill of war." The difference is that in the English case the strain is greater, the irony deeper, the antithesis between the spirit and the body ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... extent of four or five miles, before reaching the Jordan, a rich harvest of wheat was being reaped upon the plain. We first attempted to cross at Samakh, but finding it impossible at that season, had to turn back to the ford at the broken bridge, which the natives call the 'mother of arches,' (Umm el Kanater;) and even there the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... a couple of hours we reached a small river, so deep that horses could only cross it by swimming, so we had to turn back; but as we were getting hungry, and the water of the almost stagnant river was too muddy to drink, we went towards a house a few hundred yards off. In the plantation we saw a small raised hut, which we thought would do well for us to breakfast in, so I entered, and found inside a ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Warner, Henry C. Robinson, and Mark Twain. It was an unpleasant, drizzly evening, but the weather had no effect on their audience. The place was jammed and packed, the aisles, the windows, and the gallery railings full. Hundreds who came as late as the hour announced for the opening were obliged to turn back, for the building had been thronged long before. Mark Twain's speech that night is still remembered in Hartford as the greatest effort of his life. It was hardly that, except to those who were caught in the psychology of the moment, the tumult and the shouting of patriotism, the surge ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... From my present elevation, the lake was seen bending round to the N. E., and I became aware that it would be a barrier to all efforts to the north. My horses were suffering, too, from want of water and food; and I had, therefore, no alternative but to turn back from so ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... bell rings, and Mr. EDWIN DROOD is announced as waiting to see Miss FLORA. Having first rubbed her lips and cheeks, alternately, with her fingers, to make them red; held her hands above her head to turn back the circulation and make them white; and added a little lead-penciling to her eyebrows to make them black; the Flowerpot trips innocently down to the parlor, and stops short at some distance from the visitor in a curious sort of ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... a long time since we have met with anything so charming, so refreshing, so droll. . . . Read this book once, and one wants to turn back and read it ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... moment and were about to turn back toward their own part of the beach, when Leslie suddenly seized Phyllis's ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... two other German men in the living-room of Badge, the printer, in Austin Friars. It happened that the tide was high at four in the afternoon, and, after a morning of glints of sun, great rain fell. Thus, when the Lord Oberstein's men set out into the weather, they must needs turn back, because the water was all out between Austin Friars and the river. They came again into the house, not very unwillingly, to resume their arguments about Justification by Faith, about the estate of the Queen Anne, about the King's mind ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back]. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... that M. Riel had grown tired of his pre-eminence and was anxious to lay down his authority; at other times I heard of preparation made and making to oppose the Expedition by force, and of strict watch being maintained along the Pembina frontier to arrest and turn back all persons except such as were friendly to ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... me a king. That the love-fire of my heart would not insure the faithful being at my side from being frozen was soon made clearly sensible to me by an involuntary shudder. More dejected than ever, I rose up and walked a few times about my room (that is to say, two steps right forward, and then turn back again). The sense of my condition followed me like the shadow on the wall, and for the first time in my life I felt myself cast down, and threw a gloomy look on my dark future. I had no patron, therefore could not reckon upon promotion for ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... uncertainly grasped in this moment of distraction, that she felt utterly broken-hearted and alone. She had not counted upon this; she had not expected her self-command would so completely fail her; but it was so; and although without one shadow of a wish to turn back or in any wise alter her course, the first beginning of her journey was made amidst mental storms. Julia was the particular bitter thought over which her tears poured; but they flooded every image that rose of home things, and childish things ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... When a man has put his hand to the plough he has no right to turn back. And you ought to know better than tempt me, I say. But with regard to you young people it is very different; you haven't a care, so you can't do better than be happy, that is, at the appointed time. There's a time for everything, the Book says, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... planned upstairs produced two Michelin maps. "To-day," he said, "we will run back to Bath—from which it will be easy for you to train to Falmouth. We will go by Monmouth and then turn back through the Forest of Dean, where you will get glimpses of primitive coal mines still worked by two men and a boy with a windlass and a pail. Perhaps we will go through Cirencester. I don't know. Perhaps ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... for breath. He hardly knows, when he sees them in this pickle, if he should be glad or sorry. His simple little heart is filled with a sense of the catastrophes that befall the great and strong. As for the four muddy urchins, they turn back piteously the way they came, for how can they, I should like to know, how can they go and see their friend Jean with their shoes and stockings in this state? When they get home again, their mothers will know how naughty they have been by the evidence of their ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France

... the creatures, maybe a hundred mile; for they are not to be got here-away. No, noyour betterments and clearings have druv the knowing things out of the country, and instead of beaver-dams, which is the nater of the animal, and according to Providence, you turn back the waters over the low grounds with your mill-dams, as if twas in man to stay the drops from going where He wills them to goBenny, unless you stop your hand from going so often to your mouth, you wont be ready to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Turn back" :   banish, rout out, retrogress, go back, cut out, shoo, clear the air, resile, change, recover, defend, change by reversal, fall back, lapse, fire, alter, force out, turn, frighten, recuperate, displace, recidivate, rouse, shoo off, drive off, shoo away, hold back, move, cut down, modify, relapse



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com