turn to
verb
Simple meaning
To consult for advice or help.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
turntooSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɝnˈtu
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To consult for advice or help.
Direct one's interest or attention towards; go into
“The student turned to the teacher for help.”
To start to do or to use something in an attempt to deal with a difficult and unpleasant situation.
intransitive
To apply oneself; to focus; to get one's head down.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see turn, to.
With to as particle
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To consult for advice or help.
Used this way, turn to is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.