Word.ws English Dictionary

off the back foot

off the back foot prepositional phrase: from a defensive position.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) From a defensive position.

Origin of off the back foot

By analogy with a cricket shot.

Questions about off the back foot

What does off the back foot mean?
Off the back foot means from a defensive position.
What part of speech is off the back foot?
Off the back foot is a prepositional phrase.

Words near off the back foot in the dictionary

  1. off sync
  2. off tap
  3. off target
  4. off the air
  5. off the back
  6. off the back foot
  7. off the bat
  8. off the beam
  9. off the beaten path
  10. off the beaten track
  11. off the boil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: off the back foot (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-off the back foot.ogg.

Cite this entry: “off the back foot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/off_the_back_foot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.