Word.ws English Dictionary

backfooted

backfooted is the simple past and past participle of backfoot.

Meaning of backfoot

Verb

backfoot (third-person singular simple present backfoots, present participle backfooting, simple past and past participle backfooted)

  1. (transitive) To put on the defensive; to put off balance.
    • Hamlet is bitter, evasive, now backfooting them, now attacking, now genial - their job isn't going to be easy.1996, Kenneth Branagh, “The Film diaries”, in Hamlet, page 188

Questions about backfooted

What is backfooted the simple past and past participle of?
Backfooted is the simple past and past participle of backfoot.

Words near backfooted in the dictionary

  1. backfluxes
  2. backfolded
  3. backfolding
  4. backfoldings
  5. backfoot
  6. backfooted
  7. backfooting
  8. backfoots
  9. backform
  10. backformation
  11. backformations

Source and license

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