turn tail
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ One look's enough to turn the girl's stomach.
If it had been grey and raining and chilly he might have taken one look at Wyvis Hall and turned tail and fled to Crete or Delos or somewhere.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “turn tail” mean?
to run away quickly, often due to fear Literally: turn one's tail
Is “turn tail” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.