"back-and-forth" meaning in English

See back-and-forth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: back-and-forths [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} back-and-forth (plural back-and-forths)
  1. Alternative form of back and forth Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: back and forth
    Sense id: en-back-and-forth-en-noun-lcgC~ST0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "back-and-forths",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "back-and-forth (plural back-and-forths)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "back and forth"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 128:",
          "text": "After months of bitter disagreements and legal back-and-forth, he had finally given up and struck out on his own, but he'd met with a string of bad luck—a client who refused to pay, a flood, a false insurance claim—and he'd had to shut up shop; now he was working for a big construction firm as a gun for hire and telling anybody who would listen what a rotten hand he had been dealt.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of back and forth"
      ],
      "id": "en-back-and-forth-en-noun-lcgC~ST0",
      "links": [
        [
          "back and forth",
          "back and forth#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "back-and-forth"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "back-and-forths",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "back-and-forth (plural back-and-forths)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "back and forth"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 128:",
          "text": "After months of bitter disagreements and legal back-and-forth, he had finally given up and struck out on his own, but he'd met with a string of bad luck—a client who refused to pay, a flood, a false insurance claim—and he'd had to shut up shop; now he was working for a big construction firm as a gun for hire and telling anybody who would listen what a rotten hand he had been dealt.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of back and forth"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "back and forth",
          "back and forth#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "back-and-forth"
}

Download raw JSONL data for back-and-forth meaning in English (1.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-02 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (db8a5a5 and fb63907). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.