sb. and a. [f. the verbal phr. turn back (TURN v. 69).] One who or that which turns back or is turned back. a. sb. (a) One who faint-heartedly retreats, or gives up an enterprise. (b) That part of anything that is folded back. b. attrib. or adj. That is folded back.
1847–78. Halliwell, Turnback, a coward.
1879. Unif. Regul., in Navy List, July (1882), 489/2. Stand-up collar, with a white turn-back on each side of the collar.
1881. A. C. Grant, Bush Life Queensland, II. 232. The unfavourable reports of these turnbacks were … little heeded.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 29 Nov., 2/2. A little more protection round the throat than a turn-back collar can afford.
1909. Daily Graphic, 19 Oct., 17/3. The little turn-back brim in a Dutch baby bonnet. Ibid., 20 Oct., 13/1. The tight-fitting tunic … ends in a turnback fold of the material.
