Word.ws English Dictionary

brushing back

brushing back is the present participle and gerund of brush back.

Meaning of brush back

Verb

brush back (third-person singular simple present brushes back, present participle brushing back, simple past and past participle brushed back)

  1. (transitive) To throw a brushback pitch at (a batter).
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To respond to criticism or arguments; to defend oneself against criticism.

Questions about brushing back

What is brushing back the present participle and gerund of?
Brushing back is the present participle and gerund of brush back.

Words near brushing back in the dictionary

  1. brushily
  2. brushiness
  3. brushing
  4. brushing aside
  5. brushing away
  6. brushing back
  7. brushing by
  8. brushing down
  9. brushing off
  10. brushing one's teeth
  11. brushing out

Source and license

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