turnabout is fair play
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.30 in modern English
29
Scrabble Score
19
Letters
4
Syllables
13
Unique Chars
Meaning
proverb
It is allowable to retaliate against an enemy's dirty tricks by using the same ones against them.
proverb
Taking turns is morally right.
Example Sentences
- "My Endeavours were used to perplex their Thoughts and Judgments; I told them, that at next Wednesday’s Dinner I hoped we would be informed who were to rule the Roast, that hitherto honest Men were kept from shuffling the Cards, because they would cast Knaves out from the Company of Kings, but we would make them know, Turn about was fair Play, and that two and three made five, though many Words did not fill a Bushel."
- "No, I won't, — I went to my bed last, — let my bed come to me now, turn about is fair play."
- "A good way to get started on a little sexual assertiveness training is to agree to take turns being “dominant.” One evening the man takes ... Well, turnabout is fair play, and it's time for the woman to do the work, to try to please her man. . . and to take pleasure from him in any way she can."
- "For both mayor parties rotation in office came to embrace the doctrine of taking turns in the distribution of prizes. More than once in his quest for the Whig nomination to Congress Lincoln employed the slogan, “turnabout is fair play." By fair play he referred not to the Youngian antipower notions but to the context for the prize of office."
- "Turnabout is fair play, right? We'll start it low and take turns, I'll tase you, and then you can tase me, and we'll see who the last man standing is."
- "Most of us, I suspect, first learn about fair play in the context of games. One of the first things we learn, even in such simple games as tag and hide-and-seek, is that “turnabout is fair play.”"