Word.ws English Dictionary

go backwards

go backwards verb: to decline or deteriorate; to get worse.

Verb

go backwards (third-person singular simple present goes backwards, present participle going backwards, simple past went backwards, past participle gone backwards)

  1. To decline or deteriorate; to get worse.
  2. (obsolete, slang) To defecate; to visit the privy.
    • [O]ne day he expressed his desire of going backwards with such natural imitation of his purpose, that every body in the room firmly believed he had actually overshot himself, and fortified their nostrils accordingly.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

Forms of go backwards

third-person singular presentgoes backwards
present participlegoing backwards
pastwent backwards
past participlegone backwards

Questions about go backwards

What does go backwards mean?
Go backwards means to decline or deteriorate; to get worse.
What part of speech is go backwards?
Go backwards is a verb.
What is the past tense of go backwards?
The past tense of go backwards is went backwards.

Words near go backwards in the dictionary

  1. go back to
  2. go back to the drawing board
  3. go back to the tools
  4. go back to where you came from
  5. go back to your country
  6. go backwards
  7. go bad
  8. go bag
  9. go bags
  10. go bail
  11. go ballistic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go backwards (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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