bring back

present singular third person brings back · participle present bringing back · participle past brought back · past brought back

1. ditransitivetransitiveTo fetch something.

   I brought back the groceries.

   2 more examples

   If you're going to the store, could you bring me back some chocolate?

   'Smuggling was a way of life here, with no stigma attached,' David explained. His own granny used to smuggle out rabbit meat, tied to her body, and bring back such coveted Italian goods as chocolate, coffee and brooms. 'Brooms?' I asked him in disbelief. 'Yes, ordinary sorghum brooms, which were in short supply in Communist Yugoslavia, like many other basic household goods,' he said with a smile.

   2026 June 24, Vitali Vitaliev, “Life on the borderline”, in RAIL, number 1064, page 68

2. transitiveTo cause someone to remember something from the past.

   The smell of the magnolia brought back sweet memories of my childhood.

3. transitiveTo reenact an old rule or law.

   In the UK it is customary to hold a vote every few years on whether to bring back the death penalty.

4. transitiveTo revive, to resurrect; to cause something dead to be alive once again.

   Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, ⁠Nor other thought her mind admits ⁠But, he was dead, and there he sits, And he that brought him back is there.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 51

   1 more example

   The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has been dead ten days, and besides he — I would not tell you else, but — I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?" / "Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. "Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?"

   1901, W. W. Jacobs, The Monkey's Paw