Word.ws English Dictionary

back to back

back to back is the alternative form of back-to-back.

Adverb

back to back (not comparable)

  1. With one's back facing that of somebody else.
    • Stand back to back so that we can see which of you is taller.
    Synonyms:
    dos a dos
  2. (idiomatic) Consecutively; one after the other.
    • The next two series entries, shot back to back, return to present day and continue to portray the puppets as good guys.2001, Richard B. Armstrong, Mary Willems Armstrong, Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series, page 163

Meaning of back-to-back

Adjective

back-to-back (not comparable)

  1. Sequential or consecutive.
    • Ruth and Gehrig hit back-to-back home runs.
  2. With one's back facing that of somebody else.
  3. (broadly) Emerging in exactly opposite directions.
    • Seen in laboratory frame the photon-jet pair is not any longer back-to-back and the energy balance is distorted.2009, R. Fiore, Alessandro Papa, Igor Ivanov, Jacques Soffer, Diffraction 2008: International Workshop on Diffraction in High Energy Physics, Amer Inst of Physics
  4. Having a party wall at the rear.
    • We lived in a row of back-to-back houses.
  5. (slang) Synonym of wired (“being a pair in seven card stud with one face up and one face down”).
    Synonyms:
    wired

See all 7 meanings of back-to-back

Synonyms of back to back

Questions about back to back

What does back to back mean?
Back to back means with one's back facing that of somebody else.
What is back to back the alternative form of?
Back to back is the alternative form of back-to-back.
What part of speech is back to back?
Back to back is an adverb.

Words near back to back in the dictionary

  1. back titrated
  2. back titrates
  3. back titrating
  4. back titration
  5. back titrations
  6. back to back
  7. back to back jack
  8. back to back jacks
  9. back to back ticket
  10. back to back tickets
  11. back to basics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back to back (page history and authors); back-to-back (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 to back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/back_to_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.