phrase

• Return to a past position or situation, especially in a way considered to be inevitable.

  ‘the region is being forced to come full circle and repeat the errors of its tragic past’

  More example sentences

  • ‘now it seems the wheel has turned full circle—the western is being revived’
  • ‘Her career came full circle with a return to cycling.’
  • ‘He has essentially come full circle, returning to the place where it all began some 17 years ago.’
  • ‘Mrs Glendinning has come full circle by returning to the school she attended as a pupil.’
  • ‘Our author's life has now come full circle with his return some years ago to his native Hampshire.’
  • ‘The exhibition comes full circle here, returning to the idea with which it begins.’
  • ‘From his arrival in Perth to his inevitable departure, our conversation has come full circle.’
  • ‘In some ways modern societies are turning full circle and returning to the varied rituals of the past.’
  • ‘Things seem to be turning full circle and I'm not sure I want to live through some of those past episodes again.’
  • ‘Warehouse conversions are now coming full circle and being turned back into warehouses again.’
  • ‘I ran a piece in the magazine looking at coffee houses coming full circle back to their 18th century roots as business places.’

  Origin

  With reference to Shakespeare's King Learv. iii. 165, ‘The Wheele is come full circle’: by association with the wheel represented in mythology and literature as turned by Fortune and symbolizing mutability.