Word.ws English Dictionary

runback

runback noun: the act of returning a kicked ball, such as from a punt or kickoff.

Noun

runback (plural runbacks)

  1. The act of returning a kicked ball, such as from a punt or kickoff
    • A fifty yard runback of a punt by Jack Reed in the fourth period gave Bowdoin a 6-0 win over Williams today in a driving rain.1936 October 18, “Fifty Yard Runback of Punt Gives Bowdoin 6-0 Win Over Williams”, in Hartford Courant, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2013, page C4
  2. A managed reduction of output in a power plant.
  3. The path taken to the location of a boss to fight it again after respawning.
    • Maybe I’m just a bit of a masochist, but as Team Cherry continued to torment me with ill-placed benches and hostile runbacks, I started to respect that viciousness as a part of Silksong’s character.2026 January, Sean Martin, Harvey Randall, Evan Lahti, Fraser Brown, Shaun Prescott, Morgan Park, Robin Valentine, Andrea Shearon, Lauren Morton, Elie Gould, “Game of the Year”, in PC Gamer, number...

Forms of runback

pluralrunbacks

Origin of runback

From run + back.

Questions about runback

What does runback mean?
Runback means the act of returning a kicked ball, such as from a punt or kickoff.
What part of speech is runback?
Runback is a noun.
What is the plural of runback?
The plural of runback is runbacks.

Words near runback in the dictionary

  1. runaway train
  2. runaway trains
  3. runaway truck ramp
  4. runaway truck ramps
  5. runaways
  6. runback
  7. runbacks
  8. runbook
  9. runbooks
  10. runcation
  11. runcations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: runback (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: “runback.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/runback. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.