Word.ws English Dictionary

goes backwards

goes backwards is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go backwards.

Meaning of go backwards

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

Questions about goes backwards

What is goes backwards the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Goes backwards is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go backwards.

Words near goes backwards in the dictionary

  1. goes back in time
  2. goes back on
  3. goes back to
  4. goes back to the drawing board
  5. goes back to the tools
  6. goes backwards
  7. goes bad
  8. goes ballistic
  9. goes balls up
  10. goes bananas
  11. goes bankrupt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goes backwards (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “goes backwards.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goes_backwards. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.