Word.ws English Dictionary

backfooting

backfooting is the present participle and gerund 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 backfooting

What is backfooting the present participle and gerund of?
Backfooting is the present participle and gerund of backfoot.

Words near backfooting in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: backfooting (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: “backfooting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/backfooting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.