Turn Over a New Leaf

Meaning Of Idiom ‘Turn Over a New Leaf’

To turn over new leaf means to start behaving in a new way; to change your way of doing things; to start fresh; to go in a new direction; or to think of new ways.

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Usage Notes

To turn over a new leaf is often, but not always, used to refer to a positive change in behavior; in other words, an improvement in one’s behavior.

Examples Of Use

“He promised to turn over a new leaf if I gave him another chance.”

“Once he was released from prison, he vowed to turn over new leaf and get an honest job.”

“Let’s turn over a new leaf. No more late-night drinking!”

Origin

This idiom has been used since the early 1500s. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with the leaves of a tree or plant. Let’s call on some other idioms:

In English terms, we might leaf through the pages of a book. Leafing through pages means looking through a book quickly, turning pages and glancing at them only briefly.

We can also take a leaf out of someone’s book. This is the same as the more modern version ‘take a page out of someone’s book.’ It means to imitate, copy, or emulate something someone else has done or the way they behave, etc.

Both these idioms have in common the word leaf or, in other words, page. So, the word leaf is an old word for page.

Similar is ‘let’s turn the page (on something).’ This means to move on to something else; also
to transition to something new. It is applied to ideas, plans, proposals, etc. As you can see, the idiom ‘turn the page’ and ‘turn over a new leaf’ are semantically related.

To turn over a new leaf invokes the image of turning to a new page in a book, leaving one page behind, and reading a brand new one, hence, the allusion.