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View synonyms for back water

back water



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Idioms and Phrases

Reverse a position, take back a statement, or otherwise retreat, as in We're sure that the senator will back water on raising taxes . This term literally refers to a vessel that moves backward in the water because its oars, paddles, or paddlewheel are reversed. It soon was transferred to other kinds of reversal. [Second half of 1700s]
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Example Sentences

Then, at the whaler's orders, the boat was swung round and the men held their oars ready to back-water.

We crept at dusk into a shaded back-water, where our keel almost touched the gravel bed.

With a desperate masterfulness he swept her from their back-water solitude out into the full current.

The double signal to back water came, and I pushed the lever bar up and down twice before I got my last signal to stop.

Instead of this, Galileo compelled the entire faculty to back water and dine on fricasseed crow.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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