point of no return
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.01 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The point in an aircraft's flight when there is insufficient fuel to reverse direction and return to the place of origin.
noun
The point in any process or sequence of events where some development becomes inevitable.
Example Sentences
- "After Munich it became daily more evident that Hitler had passed the point of no return. With every burst of news from Europe the inevitability of war became more certain."
- "[...] this trickle of loss going on relentlessly week by week will gradually reduce miscellaneous merchandise loadings on the railways to a point of no return, where the entire business must be abandoned to cut steeply mounting losses."
- "However, for slightly larger stars, no such final equilibrium state is possible, and in such a case the star will contract beyond a certain critical point — the point of no return — where complete gravitational collapse leading to a spacetime singularity is inevitable."
- "A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover."
Etymology
The expression originated in air navigation planning. The point along the planned flight path beyond which an aircraft will no longer be capable of returning to the takeoff airfield or an alternate airfield due to insufficient fuel is calculated before takeoff. This is mandatory for overwater flights or flights without alternates on route.