turn tail | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic)To turn away from someone or something, in preparation forrunning away; to reverse direction; toleaveorflee.Synonym:turn on one's heel1838,Charles Dickens, “Some Particulars Concerning A Lion”, inMudfog and Other Sketches:A box-lobby lion or a Regent-street animal . . . will never bite, and, if you offer to attack him manfully, will fairlyturn tailand sneak off.1886May 1 – July 31,Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Flight in the Heather: The Heugh of Corrynakiegh”, inKidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751:[…], London; Paris:Cassell & Company, published1886,→OCLC,page202:[H]e stormed at me all through the lessons in a very violent manner of scolding, [...] I was often tempted toturn tail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of my lessons; [...]1911June,Jack London, “Cruising in the Solomons”, inThe Cruise of the Snark, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company,→OCLC,page279:Morning found us still vainly toiling through the passage. At last, in despair, weturned tail, ran out to sea, and sailed clear round Bassakanna to our objective, Malu.1945April 3, Bruce Rae, “Okinawa: The Marines Have Landed”, inNew York Times, page 1:Five of the enemy planes were shot down and the remainderturned tail.2011April 27, Vivienne Walt, “Have Fuel, Will Fight”, inTime:The men blew up two oil pipelines in eastern Libya near the rebel-held Sarir fields, beforeturning tailand speeding back west.

Examples:

EN: You're a gentleman and ought to set an example of courage to all those deaf people. Not turn tail and sneak out of the world!
ES: ¡Debería ser un ejemplo de valor para otros sordos, y no romper sus piernas y su cuello y ser débil!
EN: Any man worth a damn would turn tail and run from me.
ES: Un buen hombre huiría de mí.
EN: I don't turn tail before swine.
ES: Yo no huyo ante los cerdos.
EN: Farid, for once in my life, I wish the RAF would turn tail and go to the devil.
ES: Farid, por una vez desearía que los aviones se dieran la vuelta.
EN: You turn tail in China...
ES: En China salió por pies.
EN: More than likely they'll turn tail at the first shot.
ES: - Darán la vuelta al primer disparo.
EN: Hey, word's all over town that you made Kristo turn tail.
ES: Oye, dicen por toda la ciudad que hiciste a Kristo torcer el rabo.
EN: The rest of 'em'll lose their guts, turn tail, break up and go home.
ES: El resto se amedrentará, dará media vuelta y volverá a casa.
EN: Tattle and turn tail, that's you.
ES: Un chivato, eso es lo que eres.
EN: Double the lookouts and turn tail at every shadow of smoke.
ES: Doblen los vigías y aléjense al primer atisbo de humo.
EN: Well, Ben, I guess I'll have to turn tail and run too.
ES: Creo que tendré que dar la espalda y huir.
EN: When one has proven himself on the field of honor, one cannot turn tail and run like a common criminal, can one?
ES: Si se ha demostrado valía en el campo de honor, no se puede poner pies en polvorosa y huir como un criminal, ¿no cree?
EN: You think we brought them in so some die and ask the rest to turn tail?
ES: No vinimos para que unos murieran y otros volvieran.
EN: You just back up and go on down the river like I told you or turn tail and get.
ES: Así que más te vale instalarse río abajo como le he dicho, o prepárese para defenderse.
EN: And it's gonna stay that way till we can find ourselves a sheriff that doesn't turn tail and run the minute someone takes a shot at him.
ES: Y así seguirá hasta que encontremos un comisario que no salga huyendo al primer tiro.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).