turn of the century
37
3.9
- noun
:
cambio de siglo
- Since the turn of the century, there was huge demand for new cars in China, and this was driven not just by the increasing wealth within the country.
- turn of the century New York
- turn of the century America
- turn of the century U.S.
OK, so are you aware of New York at the turn of the century?
- OK, so are you aware of New York at the turn of the century?
- This was hard for us to imagine today when we all know quantum mechanics, but at the turn of the century this was a shocking statement.
- Yeah, that's not the way things worked at the turn of the century.
- Since the turn of the century, there was huge demand for new cars in China, and this was driven not just by the increasing wealth within the country.
- But if you're looking for like a witch school that takes place in like New York City, turn of the century, it's got that imagery for you.
- They were a pirate who how come you don't see like what ghosts always seem to come from like turn of the century, but we don't see any like Victorian ghosts.
Examples
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My great grandparents came here from Italy at the turn of the century.
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The Carren County courthouse was a turn-of-the-century sandstone building, set in the middle of the town square.
Fiction book (1994) -
Who was responsible for assisting the urban poor at the turn of the century: voluntary organizations or government?
Academic text (1992) -
Thus, the state did little to combat pellagra until the turn of the century.
Academic text (1992) -
We later discovered they were made between the turn of the century and the late 1920s by an extraordinary New Zealander.
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Japan's ties with South Africa are extensive and go back to the turn of the century.
Academic text (1991) -
Farmers listened, and global P fertilizer use increased roughly fourfold by the turn of the century.
Academic text (2011) -
We were standing in the domed, marble vestibule of a turn-of-the-century office building, tired of our high heels.
Fiction book (2002) -
Brooklyn Heights is a quaint, old-fashioned neighborhood known for its tree-lined streets and elegant turn-of-the-century brownstones.
Fiction book (2000) -
My great grandparents came here from Italy at the turn of the century.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is compositionally derived: 'turn' as a change or transition combined with 'century' (100 years) yields the period around the change between centuries. Function words 'of the' do not add idiomatic meaning, and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Turn of the century comes from the image of a big calendar page that gets a turn when a century ends and a new one begins. So it now means the years just before and just after the 'start of a new century'.