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/bæk daʊn/ Listen

verb

Back v. i.

To move or go backward; as, the horse refuses to back.

(Naut.) To change from one quarter to another by a course opposite to that of the sun; used of the wind.

(Sporting) To stand still behind another dog which has pointed; said of a dog. (Eng.)

To back and fill, to manage the sails of a ship so that the wind strikes them alternately in front and behind, in order to keep the ship in the middle of a river or channel while the current or tide carries the vessel against the wind. Hence: (Fig.) To take opposite positions alternately; to assert and deny. (Colloq.)

To back out, To back down, to retreat or withdraw from a promise, engagement, or contest; to recede. (Colloq.) "Cleon at first... was willing to go; but, finding that he (Nicias) was in earnest, he tried to back out."

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Etymology of 'Back down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Back down" Quotes from Famous Books

... catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees, the tree-fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row back down stream, and like dream-pictures all the various green shapes of the ...

— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... tail feathers and use them to brace themselves when they are climbing a tree. They have become so dependent on them that they don't dare move about on the trunk of a tree without using them. If they want to come down a tree they have to back down. ...

— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... did not like this arrangement, but having challenged Buffalo Bill to play, and given him the choice of the stakes, he dared not back down, ...

— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham

... confidence, and made him pluck up his own waning courage. These girls depended upon him, and he was not the boy to back down before even ...

— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... lives?" said Canning, also glancing back down the dingy street. "I thought somebody said he'd come into money from ...

— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

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