Word.ws English Dictionary

backsy

backsy is the alternative spelling of backsie.

Meaning of backsie

Noun

backsie (plural backsies)

  1. (childish) The back.
    • A mimsy, a clapsy, I roll my hands, touch backsie, My right hand, my left hand, High as the sky, low as the sea, I touch my knee, and my heel, and my toe, And over we go.1985, Dorothy Einon, Play with a purpose
  2. (childish, in plural, often) The act of taking back or going back on a statement, promise, or agreement.
    • No backsie no matter what.1986, Alice Bach, The Meat in the Sandwich, page 136
  3. (childish, in plural, often) A reciprocal action or consequence, such as immediately tagging the player who has tagged one in a game of tag.
  4. (in plural, often, jacks) The act of going through a sequence of moves in reverse.
    • And then you play Backsies again if you're playing that way.1956, Patricia Evans, Jacks, page 9
  5. (childish, in plural, often) The act of joining a queue behind a friend rather than at the end of the queue.
    • To her, the ethical thicket consists of "frontsies and backsies," a phenomenon she noticed in kindergarten.1988, William L. Rivers, Cleve Mathews, Ethics for the media, page 45

Forms of backsy

pluralbacksies

Origin of backsy

From back + -sy.

Questions about backsy

What is backsy the alternative spelling of?
Backsy is the alternative spelling of backsie.

Words near backsy in the dictionary

  1. backswording
  2. backswordman
  3. backswordmen
  4. backswords
  5. backswung
  6. backsy
  7. backsyfore
  8. backta
  9. backtab
  10. backtabbed
  11. backtabbing

Source and license

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