sb. (a.) [f. the verbal phr. turn again (TURN v. 66).]
† 1. A turning again or about; a revolution; a winding or deviation. Obs.
1545. Raynold, Byrth Mankynde, I. x. (1634), 34. The … vaines infinitely intricate and writhed with a thousand revolutions or turnagaines.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xxv. (1592), 380. Moyses in leading the people of Israell through so many turnagaines.
† b. That which turns back an advance. Obs.
1630. R. Johnson’s Kingd. & Commw., 43. Mountaines are natures bulwarkes…; the Retreats they are of the oppressed, the scornes and turne-againes of victorious Armies.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 252. Why then fall there out so many turnagaines in the lives of the best?
2. A device in the bobbin-net machine.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., xxxiii. (ed. 3), 349. An improvement in a particular part of such machines, called a turn-again.
3. A refrain of a song or lay.
1871. Browning, Balaust., 214. Sing them a strophe, with the turn-again, Down to the verse that ends all, proverb-like.
† 4. attrib. or as adj. in turn-again alley, lane, a blind alley, a cul-de-sac; also, a winding or crooked lane. Obs.
1531. Tindale, Expos. 1 John, Prol. (1537), 5. It is become a turne-agayne lane unto them, which they can not go thorow.
1624. Heywood, Gunaik., V. 256. A turne-againe-lane, that had no passage through.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), I. 56. [In Scotland] A little court or turn-again alley, is a closs.
1807. Antiq. Rep., I. 346. It was Friar Richard’s ill fate to take into a turn-again lane, that had no passage through.
