Word.ws English Dictionary

pushes back

pushes back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of push back.

Meaning of push back

Verb

push back (third-person singular simple present pushes back, present participle pushing back, simple past and past participle pushed back)

  1. To refute or argue against a position or an accusation; to express one's own view on a situation.
    • The scandal is growing legs. We need to start pushing back.
  2. To postpone.
    • The Friday meeting keeps getting pushed back to the following week.
  3. (migration) To summarily expel asylum seekers, especially in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.
    • EU member states have used illegal operations to push back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europe’s borders during the pandemic[…]2021 May 5, Lorenzo Tondo, “Revealed: 2,000 refugee deaths linked to illegal EU pushbacks”, in The Guardian
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see push, back.

Questions about pushes back

What is pushes back the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pushes back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of push back.

Words near pushes back in the dictionary

  1. pushes along
  2. pushes and shoves
  3. pushes around
  4. pushes aside
  5. pushes away
  6. pushes back
  7. pushes daisies
  8. pushes down
  9. pushes forward
  10. pushes in
  11. pushes into the long grass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pushes back (page history and authors); push 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: “pushes back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pushes_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.