fight back

present singular third person fights back · participle present fighting back · participle past fought back · past fought back

1. intransitiveTo defend oneself by fighting.

   The bully hadn't been expecting his victim to fight back, and now the bully has quadriplegia.

   1. intransitiveTo counterattack (counterstrike); to resist an attack or respond after one.

      During the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. Navy began fighting back, and it wouldn't stop until August 1945.

      3 more examples

      KIRA: You can change their minds. Convince your fellow Cardassians to go on the offensive. DUKAT: No, I'd be wasting my breath. They wouldn't listen to me. No one wants to fight. There was a time when the mere mention of my race inspired fear. And now we're beaten people, afraid to fight back because we don't want to lose what little is left.

      1996, “Return to Grace”, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 4, episode 14 (Science Fiction), →OCLC

      With Scott and the outstanding Claire Rafferty in particular fighting back, all was not lost.

      2015 June 9, “Women’s World Cup 2015: England beaten by France in Group F opener”, in The Guardian (London), archived from the original on 17 Jun 2017

      The 1928 Royal Commission on Transport not only set some controls for the road haulage industry, it also gave the railway companies the opportunity to fight back.

      2021 August 25, Richard Foster, “The rise and fall of railway's Big Four...”, in RAIL, number 938, pages 54–55

2. transitiveto repress; to struggle to repress.

   fight back tears

   2 more examples

   She tried to fight back her laughter.

   It was especially after the Battle of Midway that the U.S. was able to fight the Japanese back toward their home islands.

3. intransitiveTo overturn a losing deficit.