back away

back away verb: to move in a direction opposite to that which one is facing, keeping one's attention on the thing in front being avoided.

Verb

back away (third-person singular simple present backs away, present participle backing away, simple past and past participle backed away)

(intransitive) To move in a direction opposite to that which one is facing, keeping one's attention on the thing in front being avoided.
- Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking...1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
- The WSR has remained in touch with GO-OP, despite the group deciding to back away from the project in the short term.2023 February 8, Andrew Mourant, “A serious shuttle service with options to Taunton and beyond”, in RAIL, number 976, page 30
(intransitive) To cease supporting something; to pretend one has never supported something.

third-person singular present	backs away
present participle	backing away
past participle	backed away
past	backed away

What does back away mean?: Back away means to move in a direction opposite to that which one is facing, keeping one's attention on the thing in front being avoided.
What part of speech is back away?: Back away is a verb.
What is the past tense of back away?: The past tense of back away is backed away.

Adapted from Wiktionary: back away (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: 2026-09-02

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