Word.ws English Dictionary

back-patting

back-patting is the present participle and gerund of back-pat.

Meaning of back-pat

Verb

back-pat (third-person singular simple present back-pats, present participle back-patting, simple past and past participle back-patted)

  1. Synonym of pat on the back.
    • Barney has always back-patted himself that he is without an equal on the dirt track.1911 February 19, “The Auto Racers”, in The Sun, volume CXLVIII, number 95, Baltimore, Md., part 2, page 1, column 4
    Synonyms:
    pat on the back

See all 2 meanings of back-pat

Questions about back-patting

What is back-patting the present participle and gerund of?
Back-patting is the present participle and gerund of back-pat.

Words near back-patting in the dictionary

  1. back-pager
  2. back-pages
  3. back-pat
  4. back-pats
  5. back-patted
  6. back-patting
  7. back-patty
  8. back-pedal
  9. back-pocket
  10. back-pocketed
  11. back-pocketing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back-patting (page history and authors); back-pat (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.

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