take a turn for the better

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Idioms and Phrases

Improve, as in We thought she was on her deathbed but now she's taken a turn for the better . The antonym is take a turn for the worse , meaning “get worse, deteriorate,” as in Unemployment has been fairly low lately, but now the economy's taken a turn for the worse . This idiom employs turn in the sense of “a reversal,” a usage dating from about 1600.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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