A reversal or complete change of direction, opinion, or policy; an about-face.
Compound of 'change' plus 'about,' creating a noun expressing a sudden reversal. Rare formation showing English's ability to create compounds for new concepts when needed.
This word appears sporadically in 19th-century texts but never caught on—English speakers preferred simpler terms like 'about-face' or 'reversal,' showing how many compound words die out because they're simply not catchy enough to survive in living language.
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