Word.ws English Dictionary

take aback

UK/ˌteɪk əˈbæk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˌtæɪk əˈbæk/

take aback verb: to surprise or shock; to discomfit.

Verb

take aback (third-person singular simple present takes aback, present participle taking aback, simple past took aback, past participle taken aback)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To surprise or shock; to discomfit.
    • I was rather taken aback by his angry reply.
    • The bad news took us aback.
  2. (passive, usually) Of a ship: to catch it with the sails aback suddenly.

Forms of take aback

third-person singular presenttakes aback
present participletaking aback
pasttook aback
past participletaken aback

Origin of take aback

From take + aback, see the two entries for their respective etymology.

Questions about take aback

What does take aback mean?
Take aback means to surprise or shock; to discomfit.
What part of speech is take aback?
Take aback is a verb.
How do you pronounce take aback?
Take aback is pronounced /ˌteɪk əˈbæk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of take aback?
The past tense of take aback is took aback.

Words near take aback in the dictionary

  1. take a wicket
  2. take a wife
  3. take a wiz
  4. take a wizz
  5. take a wrong turn at Albuquerque
  6. take aback
  7. take account of
  8. take across
  9. take action
  10. take advantage
  11. take advantage of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take aback (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-take aback.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take aback.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_aback. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.