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Turn tail   /tərn teɪl/   Listen
Turn tail

verb
1.
Flee; take to one's heels; cut and run.  Synonyms: break away, bunk, escape, fly the coop, head for the hills, hightail it, lam, run, run away, scarper, scat, take to the woods.  "The burglars escaped before the police showed up"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Turn tail" Quotes from Famous Books



... here waitin' for him now. Nobody knows how many men ride with that gang—and maybe he can pull in the Apaches, too. They wouldn't pass up a good chance to get back at you. You have the reputation of being about the only white man in this territory to make them turn tail and give up a fight. Now—supposin' you do get Kitchell stopped here at the pass—and the army patrol comes in behind him. Then together you can finish him, and perhaps some bronco Apaches into the ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... regularity and persistence that makes me ill. Did the world ever see the like of it? You send out one of our mounted regiments to look for a mounted rebel regiment, and the moment it finds what it's lookin' for the rebs give a pleased sort of yell, and ours turn tail. Because it's become a habit: that's why our cavalry runs! And then the fun begins! Lord God Almighty! what's ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... sure. Sorry I can't oblige you in return,—very; but you'll just have to turn tail and drive back again. That bit of paper says 'Pass the bearer,' and the bearer's already passed. You can't get two men through this picket on one man's pass, not if one is a nigger and t'other a skunk; ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... fighting from the protection of trenches. With the hostile army almost upon them the Mohammedans worked furiously digging a deep ditch around the city, and so well did the ditch answer their purpose that the Meccans could accomplish nothing against them, but were obliged at last to turn tail and ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards



Words linked to "Turn tail" :   fly, leave, skedaddle, go away, flee, go forth, head for the hills, take flight



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