BACK DOWN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Back down

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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

... mother would slip away for a visit to some of de neighbors homes, she would raise up the old plank floor to de log cabin and make pallets on de ground and put us to bed and put the floor back down so dat we couldn't be seen or found by the patrollers on their stroll around ...

— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... that day; next Day (Saturday) it was not to be open at all (I having proposed to wait in case it should), and on Sunday only from 12 to 2. Hearing all this, in Rage and Despair I tore back to Rotterdam: and on Saturday Morning got the Boat out of the muddy Canal in which she lay and tore back down the Maas, etc., so as to reach dear old Bawdsey shortly after Sunday's Sunrise. Oh, my Delight when I heard them call out 'Orford Lights!' as the Boat ...

— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... we see trees hung with creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while we 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 forest sweep by ...

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

... know, we've got to land! We're sunk if we don't go outside and move around! We'll spoil our story-line. This is the greatest adventure-serial anybody on Earth ever tuned in to follow! If we back down on exploration, our audience will be disgusted and resentful and they'll take it ...

— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... as he turned back toward the hotel. A few encounters with the things of his youth, and perhaps the cloud would clear away. Already the court-house had stirred some memories. And on turning back down the hill he had another swift vision, photographically distinct but unrelated to anything that had preceded or followed it. It was like a few feet cut ...

— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

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