backtrack

plural backtracks

1. The act of backtracking.

present singular third person backtracks · participle present backtracking · participle past backtracked · past backtracked

1. To retrace one's steps.

   I dropped my sunglasses and had to backtrack to find them.

   1 more example

   Trophy in paw, I invest another hour twenty backtracking to find my original spawn-in spot, and reduce Fluffoki and her little friendlings to so much dead flesh, although sorry to say, it being a kids' game, they die in splatters of sparks rather than [...]

   2008, Lauren Beukes, Moxyland - Page 86

2. To repeat or review work already done.

   If we backtrack through this problem, maybe we can figure out where we went wrong.

3. aeronauticsTo taxi down an active runway in the opposite direction to that being used for takeoff.

   Speedbird One: enter and backtrack Runway 27 Left.

4. To exercise a racehorse around the racetrack in the opposite direction to that in which races are run.
5. To go back on or withdraw a statement.

   After enormous public outrage, the government backtracked on its proposed ban.

   2 more examples

   Woodward’s mild rebuke of Tatis received backlash from most players who spoke out, and even Woodward backtracked and reexplained himself the next day.

   2020 August 22, Adam Kilgore, “Baseball’s unwritten rules may be softening, but they haven’t gone away”, in The Washington Post

   “You saw the disaster that followed when Trump spoke out against the Florida [amendment],” said Trish Crouse, a political science professor at the University of New Haven. “He found himself having to backtrack and reexplain himself.”

   2024 June 10, Justine McDaniel and Anumita Kaur, “Harris’s own ballot will include crime measure dividing Democrats in Calif.”, in The Washington Post

   Synonyms: backpedal