job backwards

verb

To reassess one's original decisions (e.g. investments) with hindsight, determining how they might have been better chosen.

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Meanings

verbjob backwards (third-person singular simple present jobs backwards, present participle jobbing backwards, simple past and past participle jobbed backwards)

present singular third person jobs backwards · participle present jobbing backwards · participle past jobbed backwards · past jobbed backwards

  1. intransitivebusinessTo reassess one's original decisions (e.g. investments) with hindsight, determining how they might have been better chosen.

    […] it would seem necessary to undertake a series of ex post studies, selecting present major science-based industries and jobbing backwards so as to relate their present value to the network of scientific discoveries judged essential to them.

    1969, Ian Charles Rayner Byatt, Adrian Victor Cohen, An attempt to quantify the economic benefits of scientific research
    1 more example

    They maintain that Sir William has "jobbed backwards"; that people who invested in the mines were indulging in a speculation, and that because the speculation has failed the whole matter has been considered by Sir William as if it concerned […]

    1941, The Economist, volume 140, page 46
Cite this entry
APA

job backwards. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/job%20backwards

MLA

“job backwards.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/job%20backwards. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “job backwards,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/job%20backwards.

Source: job backwards on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.