| point of no return | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a point at which an irreversible commitment must be made to an action, progression, etc |
| 2. | a point in a journey at which, if one continues, supplies will be insufficient for a return to the starting place |
| a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
point of no return
The place in a course of action beyond which reversal is not possible. For example, Once the contract is signed, we've reached the point of no return. This expression comes from aviation, where it signifies the point where an aircraft does not have enough fuel to return to the starting point. [c. 1940]