BACK OUT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does back out mean? 

• BACK OUT (verb)
  The verb BACK OUT has 2 senses:

1. move out of a space backwards

2. make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity

  Familiarity information: BACK OUT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BACK OUT (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move out of a space backwards

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Context example:

He backed out of the driveway

Hypernyms (to "back out" is one way to...):

back (travel backward)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

back away; back out; crawfish; crawfish out; pull back; pull in one's horns; retreat; withdraw

Context example:

The aggressive investment company pulled in its horns

Verb group:

draw back; move back; pull away; pull back; recede; retire; retreat; withdraw (pull back or move away or backward)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

 Context examples 

The Abbot only sprang forward with shining eyes; but the chancellor and the master hung upon either arm and wrested him back out of danger's way.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You must sit still all you can and keep your back out of sight.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A small portion of material gets shot back out in powerful jets of hot gas, called plasma, that can wreak havoc on their surroundings.

(NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery, NASA)

When this adventure was at an end, I came back out of my house, having occasion for fresh air.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The free carnitine is transported back out to renew the cytoplasmic pool of carnitine and allow the transfer process to continue.

(Mitochondrial Carnitine Palmitoyltransferase Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

Did any one, be it East End rough or West End patrician, intrude within the outer ropes, this corp of guardians neither argued nor expostulated, but they fell upon the offender and laced him with their whips until he escaped back out of the forbidden ground.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

"Dear me, I didn't know anyone was here!" stammered Jo, preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced in.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)