Word.ws English Dictionary

shoot back

shoot back verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shoot, back.

Verb

shoot back (third-person singular simple present shoots back, present participle shooting back, simple past and past participle shot back)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shoot, back.
  2. To give an abrupt response or retort.
    • My dad shot back that he never understood why The Beatles were considered great artists.2009 July/August, Jacob Levenson, “Why John Lennon Matters”, in Columbia Journalism Review, archived from the original on 20 May 2017
    • The US president shot back that England had invented the game and it was like saying America was good at baseball.2011 August 19, “We're number one at cricket, David Cameron tells Obama”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 03 Feb 2023

Forms of shoot back

third-person singular presentshoots back
present participleshooting back
past participleshot back
pastshot back

Questions about shoot back

What does shoot back mean?
Shoot back means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shoot, back.
What part of speech is shoot back?
Shoot back is a verb.
What is the past tense of shoot back?
The past tense of shoot back is shot back.

Words near shoot back in the dictionary

  1. shoot a bird
  2. shoot a rope
  3. shoot an elephant with a BB gun
  4. shoot and protect
  5. shoot around
  6. shoot back
  7. shoot blanks
  8. shoot bug
  9. shoot bugs
  10. shoot daggers
  11. shoot down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoot 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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