Word.ws English Dictionary

fights back

fights back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fight back.

Meaning of fight back

Verb

fight back (third-person singular simple present fights back, present participle fighting back, simple past and past participle fought back)

  1. (intransitive) To defend oneself by fighting.
    • The bully hadn't been expecting his victim to fight back, and now the bully has quadriplegia.
    1. (intransitive) To counterattack (counterstrike); to resist an attack or respond after one.
      • During the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. Navy began fighting back, and it wouldn't stop until August 1945.
  2. (transitive) to repress; to struggle to repress.
    • fight back tears
  3. (intransitive) To overturn a losing deficit.

Questions about fights back

What is fights back the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Fights back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fight back.

Words near fights back in the dictionary

  1. fightress
  2. fightresses
  3. fights
  4. fights a losing battle
  5. fights a rearguard action
  6. fights back
  7. fights cocum
  8. fights down
  9. fights fire with fire
  10. fights fires
  11. fights for one's life

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fights back (page history and authors); fight 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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