Word.ws English Dictionary

way back

way back adverb: long ago.

Adverb

way back (not comparable)

  1. long ago
    Synonyms:
    of old
  2. far into the past
    • As friends, we go way back: we met in primary school.
    • “we’re mighty glad to have you all here. Don’t pay no ‘tention to Lula, she’s contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She’s a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an’ haughty ways—we’re mighty glad to have you all.”1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

Noun

way back (uncountable)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see way, back.
  2. (informal) The part farthest in the back, as of a passenger vehicle.
    • Mom swerves the church's turd-brown minivan into an open space. Departure area. The little kids are in the back seat. They ramble on about the airport. Patrick sits in the way back.2015 March 10, Diane C. Mullen, Tagged, Charlesbridge Publishing, →ISBN, page 49

Synonyms of way back

Questions about way back

What does way back mean?
Way back means long ago.
What part of speech is way back?
Way back can be an adverb or a noun.

Words near way back in the dictionary

  1. waxy screw shells
  2. waxy spleen
  3. waxycap
  4. waxycaps
  5. way
  6. way back
  7. way back when
  8. way bill
  9. way bills
  10. way enough
  11. way enoughed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: way 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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