Word.ws English Dictionary

back-of-an-envelope

back-of-an-envelope is the alternative form of back-of-the-envelope.

Meaning of back-of-the-envelope

Adjective

back-of-the-envelope

  1. (idiomatic, informal) Especially of a calculation, estimation, or other reasoning, or an idea: approximate, rough, simplified.
    • We can do some back-of-the-envelope calculations before all the facts come in.

Questions about back-of-an-envelope

What is back-of-an-envelope the alternative form of?
Back-of-an-envelope is the alternative form of back-of-the-envelope.

Words near back-of-an-envelope in the dictionary

  1. back-house
  2. back-houses
  3. back-matter
  4. back-ne
  5. back-of-a-fag-packet
  6. back-of-an-envelope
  7. back-of-the-envelope
  8. back-of-the-fag-packet
  9. back-of-the-napkin
  10. back-overman
  11. back-overmen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back-of-an-envelope (page history and authors); back-of-the-envelope (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “back-of-an-envelope.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/back-of-an-envelope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.