DRAW BACK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does draw back mean? 

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

1. pull back or move away or backward

2. use a surgical instrument to hold open (the edges of a wound or an organ)

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• DRAW BACK (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Pull back or move away or backward

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

draw back; move back; pull away; pull back; recede; retire; retreat; withdraw

Context example:

The limo pulled away from the curb

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

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Verb group:

back away; back out; crawfish; crawfish out; pull back; pull in one's horns; retreat; withdraw (make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity)

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

fall back (move back and away from)

retreat; retrograde (move back)

back down; back off; back up (move backwards from a certain position)

Sentence frames:

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

Sense 2

Meaning:

Use a surgical instrument to hold open (the edges of a wound or an organ)

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

draw back; pull back; retract

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

pull (apply force so as to cause motion towards the source of the motion)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I must draw back from your great fire.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then was the time for her to draw back.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Why did Mr Elliot draw back?

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where she left me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I saw him draw back surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former supposed slight to Miss Bertram.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, as I watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up the fire, and cook the evening meal.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I got with much difficulty out of my hammock, having first ventured to draw back the slip-board on the roof already mentioned, contrived on purpose to let in air, for want of which I found myself almost stifled.

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

Why did she draw back and look so grave at me?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)