DATE BACK

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does date back mean? 

• DATE BACK (verb)
  The verb DATE BACK has 1 sense:

1. belong to an earlier time

  Familiarity information: DATE BACK used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DATE BACK (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Belong to an earlier time

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

date back; date from; go back

Context example:

This story dates back 200 years

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

initiate; originate; start (bring into being)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "date back"):

ascend (go back in order of genealogical succession)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

They are among the oldest known stellar systems in the Universe and date back to near the beginning of galaxy growth and evolution.

(Odd Behaviour of Star Reveals Lonely Black Hole Hiding in Giant Star Cluster, ESO)

The oldest flows date back about 200 million years.

(Mars Volcano, Earth's Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time, NASA)

These calculations show that the practices of sowing and harvesting water on Sierra Nevada date back about 1,300 years.

(Researchers demonstrate that Sierra Nevada is home to the oldest underground water recharge system in Europe, University of Granada)

The tombs date back about 3,500 years and are located on the west bank of the river Nile.

(Discovery of Two Tombs Dating Back 3,500 Years Announced in Egypt, VOA)

The fossils, from the species Umaltolepis mongoliensis, date back to the early Cretaceous Period (some 100-125 million years ago).

(Paleontologists find fossil relative of Ginkgo biloba, NSF)

The Gilgamesh Flood story is known from clay tablets that date back around three thousand years.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

By studying how these distantly related plants – which split from their common ancestor roughly 400 million years ago – respond to pathogen infections, the research team discovered a suite of microbe-responsive gene families that date back to early land plant evolution.

(Ancient defence strategy continues to protect plants from pathogens, University of Cambridge)

The discovery that rats and humans share a common active forgetting ability – and in similar brain regions – suggests that the capacity to forget plays a vital role in adapting mammalian species to their environments, and that its evolution may date back at least to the time of our common ancestor.

(Selective amnesia: how rats and humans are able to actively forget distracting memories, University of Cambridge)

Three of the tombs, which date back to the New Kingdom period and are between 3500 and 3000 years old, appear to have been used for feline burial as dozens of mummified moggies were discovered within, as well as wooden cat statutes and representations of the cat goddess Bast.

(Egyptian Archaeologists Uncover One-Of-A-Kind Tomb South of Cairo, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)