turn of the centuryn.adj.
/ˌtəːn ə(v) ðə ˈsɛntʃ(ᵿ)ri/, U.S. /ˌtərn ə(v) ðə ˈsɛn(t)ʃ(ə)ri/ A. n.
The time or period at which one century ends and another begins; the beginning or end of the century under consideration.
ΚΠ
1875 Times 2 Sept. 4/4 At the turn of the century..came the brightest and most mirthful of the comedies—As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and All's Well that Ends Well.
1926 O. Barfield Hist. in Eng. Words xi. 195 Just before the turn of the century there burst..upon England that strange explosion..the Romantic Movement.
1935 Discovery Oct. 310/2 It is interesting to compare Dr Burr's notes, dating back to the turn of the century, with present conditions.
1970 New Scientist 17 Sept. 563/1 The latest estimates suggest that the area will be short of..1 270 000 cu.m. a day in 1981, and more than three million cu.m. a day by the turn of the century.
2015 Daily Tel. 1 Dec. 20/2 Shortly after the turn of the century, the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, gave a speech celebrating British diversity.
B. adj.
Usually with hyphens. Of a person or thing: originating or existing at the turn of the century; characteristic or typical of the turn of the century. Of a city, country, institution, etc.: as it was at the turn of the century.
ΚΠ
1936 Musical Times Aug. 706/2 The overture to the opera ‘The Weird of Colbar’ is in lusty, tuneful English turn-of-the-century idiom.
1955 E. Blishen Roaring Boys iv. 251 The school lavatories..were a product of turn-of-the-century parsimony.
1955 Amer. Q. 7 56 Gone even was the gently satirized industrial gentry of Paul Bourget's turn-of-the-century America.
1961 Times 29 Dec. 11/7 Mr. William Brodie's sets, vaguely turn-of-the-century.
2011 A. Armstrong America who are You? ii. 4 Victoria the grandmother, sat high and straight in her black dress a bit turn of the century with a tight small waist, dark stones shone in the ripples of her satin dress.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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n.adj.1875