Word.ws English Dictionary

walk back

walk back verb: to withdraw or backpedal on a statement or promise.

Verb

walk back (third-person singular simple present walks back, present participle walking back, simple past and past participle walked back)

  1. (transitive) To withdraw or backpedal on a statement or promise.
    • Did Obama walk back his support of Cordoba House? As you know, the Internets are alive with the claim that Obama has now walked back his support of Cordoba House, and I've gotten tons of emails telling me that my earlier praise of the speech is no longer operative. But did he really walk back what...2010, Greg Sargent, The Plumb Line
    • That seemed comforting — but then the president over the weekend walked back his promise.2021 June 30, Farhad Manjoo, “Democrats Have a Year to Save the Planet”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, back.

Synonyms of walk back

Forms of walk back

third-person singular presentwalks back
present participlewalking back
past participlewalked back
pastwalked back

Words formed from walk back

Questions about walk back

What does walk back mean?
Walk back means to withdraw or backpedal on a statement or promise.
What part of speech is walk back?
Walk back is a verb.
What is the past tense of walk back?
The past tense of walk back is walked back.

Words near walk back in the dictionary

  1. walk around
  2. walk around money
  3. walk away
  4. walk away from
  5. walk away with
  6. walk back
  7. walk back the cat
  8. walk behind
  9. walk cycle
  10. walk cycles
  11. walk down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: walk 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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