back burner

plural back burners · alternative back-burner · alternative backburner

1. countableA section of a stove used to keep some pots warm while one focuses on others.

   Also, avoid reaching across a lit burner in the front of the stove to stir a pot on a back burner. Turn the front burner off while you tend to food on a back burner.

   2008, Frances E. Ruffin, Kitchen Smarts, The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc, →ISBN, page 33

   1 more example

   In restaurants, the back burner is the place that chefs leave their sauces and soup stocks to simmer while they are engaged in other, more immediately pressing, and faster operations on the front burners.

   2005, David Rosenwasser, Jill Stephen, Writing Analytically, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 38

   Antonyms: front burner

2. figurativelyuncountableA state of low urgency; a state of low current importance.

   We'll put next year's Christmas party on the back burner until we deal with the current financial crisis.

   3 more examples

   I kept cases on the back burner for years—just thinking about them, playing them out in my head, waiting for the time to work it, or a lucky break.

   2006, Guy Lawson, William Oldham, The Brotherhoods, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN

   I made myself push those issues to the back burner after completing another dispute form.

   2006, Denise Richardson, Give Me Back My Credit!, Infinity Publishing, →ISBN, page 179

   Before this bail-out, it had been widely speculated that the project would have to go on the back burner.

   2023 April 5, “Network News: West Midlands Metro extension receives £60 million bail-out”, in RAIL, number 980, page 9

   Antonyms: front burner