come full circle

1. When something “comes full circle,” it completes a cycle, returns to its beginnings: “The novelist's vision of human life has come full circle — from optimism to pessimism and back to optimism again.”

Idioms and Phrases

Also, go full circle. Complete an entire cycle; return to the original position or condition. For example, After a whole year of debate we have come full circle on this issue. Shakespeare may have originated this expression in King Lear (5:3): “The wheel is come full circle.” A 20th-century idiom with a similar meaning is what goes around comes around, as in I knew if I helped her now, she would help me later—what goes around comes around.

see full circle.