Word.ws English Dictionary

on one's back

on one's back prepositional phrase: having come to the end of one's resources.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Having come to the end of one's resources.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, one's, back.
    • I lay on my back, staring up at the clouds.

Questions about on one's back

What does on one's back mean?
On one's back means having come to the end of one's resources.
What part of speech is on one's back?
On one's back is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on one's back in the dictionary

  1. on notice
  2. on oath
  3. on occasion
  4. on offer
  5. on one hand
  6. on one's back
  7. on one's beam ends
  8. on one's behaviour
  9. on one's bill
  10. on one's conscience
  11. on one's deathbed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on one's 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: “on one's back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_one%27s_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.