Meaning in Plain English

To turn the tables on someone is to reverse a situation so that the person who was disadvantaged gains the advantage. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as changing from a weaker position in relation to someone else to a stronger one.

After trailing for three quarters, the home side turned the tables with two late goals.

The junior lawyer turned the tables on her boss by producing the document the firm had overlooked.

He had done all the teasing, but once the class challenged him, the tables had turned.

Evidence and History: From a Gaming Term to a Metaphor

Board games called “tables”

The gaming background is a family of dice-and-board games once called tables. The Online Etymology Dictionary’s entry for “table” says that backgammon was called “tables” in Middle English. The same entry traces the noun through Old French and late Old English to Latin tabula, a board or plank, and notes that the Old English word could denote a gaming table. This documents the age and vocabulary of the games.

That history does not, by itself, prove how the idiom entered English. A game can exist for centuries without supplying a particular expression. The linguistic connection here rests on the etymological accounts given by the Oxford English Dictionary and Etymonline, together with early figurative quotations. None of the sources consulted supplies a chain of literal gaming instructions that gradually becomes the modern idiom.

The OED’s earliest cited quotation

The OED account summarized by Grammarphobia gives its earliest written quotation in George Chapman’s comedy The Widdowes Teares, printed in 1612: “You doe well Sir to take your pleasure of me, (I may turne tables with you ere long).” The linked 1612 quarto contains the line in an exchange involving Tharsalio. Grammarphobia reports the OED’s caution that the expression was apparently figurative from the beginning. These sources support an early attestation, not a claim that no older use could ever be found.

Other seventeenth-century dating

Etymonline places the figurative phrase in the 1630s and attributes it to backgammon. A later source preserves a second early example: the fifth edition of Robert Sanderson’s XXXIV Sermons, published in 1671, prints “do but turn the tables: imagine thy neighbour were now playing thy game, and thou his.” The scanned edition heads that sermon as delivered at the Nottingham assizes in 1634. Grammarphobia, summarizing the OED, instead reports 1648 for the Sanderson sermon.

Those dates should not be collapsed into a single “first use.” One is Etymonline’s decade-level dating for the figurative phrase, two are source-reported dates for the Sanderson sermon, and one is the publication date of the edition inspected. The sources differ on the sermon date, while the earlier Chapman quotation is the earliest one the OED account cited here records. Modern Cambridge usage expresses the same central idea: a weaker party becomes the stronger one.

What Is Documented, and What Remains Unproven

Earliest currently located evidence: In the sources consulted for this article, the earliest quotation currently located is Chapman’s line in the 1612 quarto. More precisely, it is the earliest quotation recorded by the OED account we consulted; it should not be promoted to an absolute first use in all surviving English.

Plausible literal image: The OED explanation quoted by Grammarphobia refers to the position of a board being reversed and therefore to the players’ situations being reversed. This makes sense as the image behind the metaphor, but the same source says the surviving expression appears figurative from its earliest quotation.

Leading origin account: The OED account links the expression to board games, and Etymonline specifically says it is from backgammon, the game once called tables. These are explicit lexicographical attributions, so the gaming explanation is better supported than an anonymous internet story. Still, evidence that tables games existed is separate from evidence for the exact path of linguistic transmission. The consulted sources do not document someone using the words as a literal rule or move before they became a metaphor.

Unsupported board-turning folklore: None of the sources consulted documents players physically rotating or flipping a board as a rule, tactic, or superstition. Mental Floss likewise says that “you can’t actually ‘turn the tables’ in a game of backgammon” and presents the wording as a metaphor for reversing the players’ situations. That does not disprove every possible historical action; it means the literal custom claimed by some origin stories is not established by these sources.

Two rival attributions also need careful limits. Grammarphobia says the idiom has nothing to do with tables moving at séances. Etymonline dates table-rapping in spiritualism to the 1850s, specifically 1853, much later than the early dramatic and sermon evidence. Another online attribution names John Webster’s The White Devil, a play first performed in 1612. A search of the linked Project Gutenberg text finds neither “turn the tables” nor “turne tables,” so that edition does not support the attribution. The positive early evidence cited by the OED is Chapman’s comedy.

How to Use the Phrase

“Turn the tables” is standard English in conversation, journalism, sport, business, law, and politics. The usual pattern is turn the tables on someone. “The tables have turned” states that the reversal has happened, while “the tables could turn” warns that the current advantage may not last. The tone ranges from neutral to dramatic, but the phrase normally suggests a meaningful reversal rather than a small improvement.

The defence turned the tables on the prosecution with a single witness.

She had been chasing the market leader for years; now the tables have turned.

Do not gloat—the tables could turn on you next.

The phrase can describe a comeback without implying revenge. A losing team may turn the tables simply by playing better. In a dispute, however, it can carry a sharper suggestion that the person applying pressure has become the one under pressure.

Quick Questions

What is the earliest use?

The careful answer is that the OED account cited here records its earliest quotation in Chapman’s comedy, printed in 1612. That is the earliest currently located in the sources consulted, not proof of the first time anyone ever said or wrote it.

Is “turn the tables” really from backgammon?

The OED’s gaming-board explanation and Etymonline’s backgammon attribution support that account. What is documented is the lexicographers’ attribution and the historical name “tables”; what remains unproven is a specific physical custom or a step-by-step trail from literal game language to the idiom.

Did players physically turn the board?

None of the sources consulted documents that as a rule or superstition. The board reversal is best treated as the image explained by the OED, not as a reconstructed historical scene.

Is the phrase connected to séances?

No source consulted makes that connection. Grammarphobia rejects it, and Etymonline dates spiritualist table-rapping to 1853, more than two centuries after the OED’s earliest cited quotation.

In summary, the sourced record currently reaches Chapman’s 1612 line, while the OED and Etymonline connect the metaphor to the old game name tables and to backgammon. That makes the gaming account documented as a lexicographical explanation, but the historical existence of the game does not prove a literal board-turning practice or reveal every step by which the wording became an idiom.

Sources and Further Reading