to turn on one's head
1
7.1
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
dar la vuelta a algo
- Madison turned that argument on its head, however, with his defense of the Virginia Plan, a defense later published in the newspapers of New York as the Tenth Federalist.
Examples
-
"We could turn American politics on its head," she told the crowd, "if students and workers banded together to support a third party."
Blog text (5) -
And if you recall round three of Saturday Night's main event, "Bigg Rigg" has a real chance to turn the division on its head.
Blog text (29) -
This research has turned on its head the traditional view that personality styles are essentially fixed throughout life.
Academic text (2008) -
An interesting strategy: Take a field where gravitas and institutional standing rule and turn it on its head.
Blog text (3) -
By manipulating the map, squeezing and stretching voters into unnatural and contorted boundaries, they in effect chose who their voters would be ahead of time, turning on its head the most basic of democratic principles.
Blog text (14) -
The title turns on its head the ethnocentric notion of traditional folk healers or shamans as "witch doctors," shifting focus to the anthropologist as medical trickster.
Academic text (1996) -
This research has turned on its head the traditional view that personality styles are essentially fixed throughout life.
-
The most powerful nation on earth, the United States of America, has decided to turn on its head the international system.
-
In a single moment, everything that science held sacred suddenly turned on its head.
Synonyms
51
4.5
Cause a big sudden change that leaves people confused
12
6.5
Make people see something in a very different way
Completely change the usual idea about something
To change a situation completely and suddenly
Antonyms
How Radical
55
6.6
- Formal
122
5.6
- Informal
1
7.1
523
3.4
14
4.8
4
4.2
227
3.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components give a clue: 'turn' signals change and 'on one's head' evokes a spatial inversion, so a learner who knows the words could plausibly infer a sense of reversal or overturning. However, the phrase is a metaphorical extension where the specific pragmatic sense — a radical transformation or rethinking — is not fully predictable from the literal parts and is idiomatic in use. Because there is a clear connection but not complete compositional predictability, it is best classified as semi-transparent.
Etymology
Turn on one's head comes from the simple picture of turning something so its head is upside down. That makes the whole thing the opposite, so the phrase means 'to completely change or reverse'.