the.com/turn of the tide
The exact moment momentum defects to the other side, quietly, before anyone cheers.
means The point at which a situation that was going one way begins reversing direction, used especially for shifts in fortune, battle, or public mood.
from Rooted literally in the sea: tides turn on a fixed schedule, the brief slack-water moment when incoming becomes outgoing or vice versa. Sailors and coastal communities watched this turn closely since it governed when ships could safely leave harbor. By the 16th–17th centuries, writers had already lifted the phrase ashore as a metaphor for any decisive reversal of fortune — in war, politics, or luck — the instant things stop flowing one way and start flowing the other, long before the change is visible to those caught in it.
- literal origin
- Tides actually pause briefly before reversing direction
- that pause
- Called slack water, nothing to do with laziness
- military use
- Popularized describing battles flipping from losing to winning
- misconception
- It is gradual, not a single dramatic instant