Word.ws English Dictionary

on the back of

on the back of preposition: as a result of; after; subsequent to.

Preposition

on the back of

  1. As a result of; after; subsequent to.
    • Lisicki will rise from her current ranking of 62 to at least 35 in the world on the back of her efforts at the All England Club, but she will have serious designs on a first Grand Slam title after overcoming the 2007 runner-up.2011 June 28, Piers Newbery, “Wimbledon 2011: Sabine Lisicki beats Marion Bartoli”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2023
  2. (derogatory) By the effort of; by drawing an unfair advantage from.
    • Generational wealth was in some cases built on the back of slave labor.
    • They're trying to hand out dividends on the backs of the skilled workers who keep the lights on and can't get adequate raises and insurance.

Questions about on the back of

What does on the back of mean?
On the back of means as a result of; after; subsequent to.
What part of speech is on the back of?
On the back of is a preposition.

Words near on the back of in the dictionary

  1. on the air
  2. on the alert
  3. on the anvil
  4. on the back burner
  5. on the back foot
  6. on the back of
  7. on the ball
  8. on the bash
  9. on the basis of
  10. on the batter
  11. on the beach

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the back of (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-on the back of.ogg.

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