turning point

/ˌtʌrnɪŋ ˈpɔɪnt/

/ˈtʌnɪŋ pɔɪnt/

Other forms: turning points

A turning point is a specific, significant moment when something begins to change. Historians might say that Rosa Parks's famous bus protest was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.

Looking back at historical events, it's fairly easy to mark various turning points. An individual might notice a turning point as well, like the day you met your best friend or the summer you spent volunteering in India. This figurative meaning of turning point was coined in the 1640s, while a less popular, more literal meaning came along about forty years later: "point at which motion in one direction ceases and that in another or contrary direction begins."

Definitions of turning point

1. noun

   an event marking a unique or important historical change of course or one on which important developments depend
   synonyms: landmark, watershed

   types:

   Fall of Man

   (Judeo-Christian mythology) when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, God punished them by driving them out of the Garden of Eden and into the world where they would be subject to sickness and pain and eventual death

   road to Damascus

   a sudden turning point in a person's life (similar to the sudden conversion of the Apostle Paul on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus of arrest Christians)

   type of:

   juncture, occasion

   an event that occurs at a critical time
2. noun

   the intersection of two streets
   synonyms: corner, street corner

   types:

   blind corner

   a street corner that you cannot see around as you are driving

   type of:

   carrefour, crossing, crossroad, crossway, intersection

   a junction where one street or road crosses another