To reverse the situation between two persons or groups, especially so as to gain the upper hand. This term comes from the custom of reversing the table or board in games like chess and draughts, so that the opponents’ relative positions are switched. It was being used figuratively as long ago as 1612, when George Chapman wrote (The Widow’s Tears, 1.3), “I may turn the tables with you ere long.” Another cliché with the same meaning is turnabout is fair play, which dates from the nineteenth century. Robert Louis Stevenson used it in one of his last works, The Wrecker (1892): “You had your chance then; seems to me it’s mine now. Turn about’s fair play.”