take a turn for the better


Improve, as in We thought she was on her deathbed but now she's taken a turn for the better. The antonym is take a turn for the worse, meaning “get worse, deteriorate,” as in Unemployment has been fairly low lately, but now the economy's taken a turn for the worse. This idiom employs turn in the sense of “a reversal,” a usage dating from about 1600.

Words nearby take a turn for the better