"back to the drawing board" meaning in English

See back to the drawing board in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adverb

Audio: en-au-back to the drawing board.ogg
Etymology: Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board.” as the caption of a Peter Arno cartoon of The New Yorker of March 1, 1941, depicting an engineer walking away from a crashed plane. Head templates: {{head|en|adverb|head=back to the drawing board}} back to the drawing board
  1. (idiomatic) Indicates that one must try a different strategy for achieving some goal following the failure of a recent attempt. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: back to the old drawing board Related terms: square one, back to square one Translations (back to the beginning): terug bij af (Dutch), kembali ke awal (Indonesian), balik ke awal (Indonesian), de volta à prancheta de desenho (Portuguese), нача́ть с нуля́ (načátʹ s nuljá) (note: "to start from zero") [perfective, verb] (Russian), tillbaka till ritbordet (Swedish)

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board.” as the caption of a Peter Arno cartoon of The New Yorker of March 1, 1941, depicting an engineer walking away from a crashed plane.",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Well, that didn't work at all, so it's back to the drawing board, I guess.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1958, The Engineer, volume 205, page 920:",
          "text": "For such cases the only thing is to go back to the drawing board and do it better; and it is here that the highest qualities of vision and human leadership are needed.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999, Mark L. Thompson, “Monday, October 28: Lake Michigan, Upbound”, in A Sailor’s Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters (Great Lakes Books), Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, →ISBN, page 282:",
          "text": "If we head for lay up tomorrow, those plans are right down the toilet and it's back to the drawing board.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999, Muhammad Yunus, “Opinion: Must There be Poverty?”, in Carolyn Dedolph, editor, Rice: Hunger or Hope?: IRRI 1998–1999, Makati City, Philippines: International Rice Research Institute, →ISBN, page 2:",
          "text": "Poverty is created by institutions, concepts, and policies. We need to go back to the drawing board to redesign these and remove the barriers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 August 19, Lenore Taylor, “Go back to the drawing board on climate policy, business tells politicians”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "Big business wants the main parties to go back to the drawing board on climate policy after the election to try to come up with an agreed plan for an economically efficient way to reduce Australia's emissions and offer investment certainty.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 April 5, Sam Levin, “Google scraps AI ethics council after backlash: ‘Back to the drawing board’”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "“It’s become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can’t function as we wanted. So we’re ending the council and going back to the drawing board,” a Google spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement on Thursday.",
          "type": "quote"
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        "Indicates that one must try a different strategy for achieving some goal following the failure of a recent attempt."
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      "id": "en-back_to_the_drawing_board-en-adv-PzvYomRp",
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          "goal",
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        [
          "attempt",
          "attempt#English"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Indicates that one must try a different strategy for achieving some goal following the failure of a recent attempt."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "square one"
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        {
          "word": "back to square one"
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "back to the old drawing board"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "word": "terug bij af"
        },
        {
          "code": "id",
          "lang": "Indonesian",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "word": "kembali ke awal"
        },
        {
          "code": "id",
          "lang": "Indonesian",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "word": "balik ke awal"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "word": "de volta à prancheta de desenho"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "note": "\"to start from zero\"",
          "roman": "načátʹ s nuljá",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "tags": [
            "perfective",
            "verb"
          ],
          "word": "нача́ть с нуля́"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "back to the beginning",
          "word": "tillbaka till ritbordet"
        }
      ]
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  "word": "back to the drawing board"
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  "etymology_text": "Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board.” as the caption of a Peter Arno cartoon of The New Yorker of March 1, 1941, depicting an engineer walking away from a crashed plane.",
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        },
        {
          "ref": "1999, Mark L. Thompson, “Monday, October 28: Lake Michigan, Upbound”, in A Sailor’s Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters (Great Lakes Books), Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, →ISBN, page 282:",
          "text": "If we head for lay up tomorrow, those plans are right down the toilet and it's back to the drawing board.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1999, Muhammad Yunus, “Opinion: Must There be Poverty?”, in Carolyn Dedolph, editor, Rice: Hunger or Hope?: IRRI 1998–1999, Makati City, Philippines: International Rice Research Institute, →ISBN, page 2:",
          "text": "Poverty is created by institutions, concepts, and policies. We need to go back to the drawing board to redesign these and remove the barriers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 August 19, Lenore Taylor, “Go back to the drawing board on climate policy, business tells politicians”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "Big business wants the main parties to go back to the drawing board on climate policy after the election to try to come up with an agreed plan for an economically efficient way to reduce Australia's emissions and offer investment certainty.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 April 5, Sam Levin, “Google scraps AI ethics council after backlash: ‘Back to the drawing board’”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "“It’s become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can’t function as we wanted. So we’re ending the council and going back to the drawing board,” a Google spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement on Thursday.",
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        "Indicates that one must try a different strategy for achieving some goal following the failure of a recent attempt."
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        "(idiomatic) Indicates that one must try a different strategy for achieving some goal following the failure of a recent attempt."
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      "word": "back to the old drawing board"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "word": "terug bij af"
    },
    {
      "code": "id",
      "lang": "Indonesian",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "word": "kembali ke awal"
    },
    {
      "code": "id",
      "lang": "Indonesian",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "word": "balik ke awal"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "word": "de volta à prancheta de desenho"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "note": "\"to start from zero\"",
      "roman": "načátʹ s nuljá",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "tags": [
        "perfective",
        "verb"
      ],
      "word": "нача́ть с нуля́"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "back to the beginning",
      "word": "tillbaka till ritbordet"
    }
  ],
  "word": "back to the drawing board"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (65a6e81 and 0dbea76). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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