"cover one's back" meaning in English

See cover one's back in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: covers one's back [present, singular, third-person], covering one's back [participle, present], covered one's back [participle, past], covered one's back [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} cover one's back (third-person singular simple present covers one's back, present participle covering one's back, simple past and past participle covered one's back)
  1. (informal, figuratively) To protect or look out for oneself. Tags: figuratively, informal Synonyms: cover one's backside, cover one's behind, cover one's rear, cover one's ass, cover one's arse Translations (Translations): suojella itseään (Finnish), assurer ses arrières (French), protéger ses arrières (French), couvrir ses arrières (French), fedezi magát (Hungarian), védi magát (Hungarian), védekezik (Hungarian), bebiztosítja magát (Hungarian)
    Sense id: en-cover_one's_back-en-verb-zM05yfLA Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for cover one's back meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "covers one's back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covering one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "cover one's back (third-person singular simple present covers one's back, present participle covering one's back, simple past and past participle covered one's back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To protect or look out for oneself."
      ],
      "id": "en-cover_one's_back-en-verb-zM05yfLA",
      "links": [
        [
          "protect",
          "protect"
        ],
        [
          "look out for",
          "look out"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, figuratively) To protect or look out for oneself."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "cover one's backside"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's behind"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's rear"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's ass"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's arse"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "informal"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "suojella itseään"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "assurer ses arrières"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "protéger ses arrières"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "couvrir ses arrières"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "fedezi magát"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "védi magát"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "védekezik"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "bebiztosítja magát"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "cover one's back"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "covers one's back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covering one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "cover one's back (third-person singular simple present covers one's back, present participle covering one's back, simple past and past participle covered one's back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To protect or look out for oneself."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "protect",
          "protect"
        ],
        [
          "look out for",
          "look out"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, figuratively) To protect or look out for oneself."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "cover one's backside"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's behind"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's rear"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's ass"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover one's arse"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "suojella itseään"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "assurer ses arrières"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "protéger ses arrières"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "couvrir ses arrières"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "fedezi magát"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "védi magát"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "védekezik"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "bebiztosítja magát"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cover one's back"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.