"fightback" meaning in English

See fightback in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: fightbacks [plural]
Etymology: From fight + back, as a deverbal from fight back. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|fight|back}} fight + back, {{deverbal|en|fight back|nocap=1}} deverbal from fight back Head templates: {{en-noun}} fightback (plural fightbacks)
  1. A campaign of resistance; a counterattack. Related terms: fight back
    Sense id: en-fightback-en-noun-VF~miJi1 Categories (other): English deverbals, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fight",
        "3": "back"
      },
      "expansion": "fight + back",
      "name": "compound"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fight back",
        "nocap": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "deverbal from fight back",
      "name": "deverbal"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From fight + back, as a deverbal from fight back.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fightbacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "fightback (plural fightbacks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              231,
              240
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1981 December 12, Steve Rose, “Some People's Congress”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 21, page 4:",
          "text": "The gay movement is in retreat as evidenced in the rise of anti-gay attacks and and ^([sic]) the success of anti-gay legislation. One only needs to read the Gay Community News to realize the severity of the anti-gay offensive. The fightback to this anti-gay offensive has been weak and disoriented. The number of gay organizations, thus the number of organized gays are shrinking, not growing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              22,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2009 January 25, Bruce Matthews, “Brave Sam Stosur wilts under Elena Dementieva”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 31 Dec 2012:",
          "text": "Stosur gave hope of a fightback when she smashed through Dementieva's serve in the first game of the second set.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              33,
              42
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011 September 24, Arindam Rej, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 10 Feb 2022:",
          "text": "Liverpool resisted a second-half fightback from Wolves to secure a hard-fought victory and end a run of back-to-back Premier League defeats.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              23
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 November 29, Ian Mitchelmore, “Wales put out of World Cup misery by England as sobering tournament must signal changing of the guard”, in WalesOnline, archived from the original on 16 Jan 2026:",
          "text": "A second-half fightback to draw with the USA offered a hope that swiftly evaporated following a gut-wrenching 2-0 loss to Iran only four days later. It meant only the seemingly impossible would be enough for Rob Page's men to extend their World Cup dream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A campaign of resistance; a counterattack."
      ],
      "id": "en-fightback-en-noun-VF~miJi1",
      "links": [
        [
          "campaign",
          "campaign"
        ],
        [
          "resistance",
          "resistance"
        ],
        [
          "counterattack",
          "counterattack"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "fight back"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fightback"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fight",
        "3": "back"
      },
      "expansion": "fight + back",
      "name": "compound"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fight back",
        "nocap": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "deverbal from fight back",
      "name": "deverbal"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From fight + back, as a deverbal from fight back.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fightbacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "fightback (plural fightbacks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "fight back"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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        "English countable nouns",
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              231,
              240
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1981 December 12, Steve Rose, “Some People's Congress”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 21, page 4:",
          "text": "The gay movement is in retreat as evidenced in the rise of anti-gay attacks and and ^([sic]) the success of anti-gay legislation. One only needs to read the Gay Community News to realize the severity of the anti-gay offensive. The fightback to this anti-gay offensive has been weak and disoriented. The number of gay organizations, thus the number of organized gays are shrinking, not growing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              22,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2009 January 25, Bruce Matthews, “Brave Sam Stosur wilts under Elena Dementieva”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 31 Dec 2012:",
          "text": "Stosur gave hope of a fightback when she smashed through Dementieva's serve in the first game of the second set.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              33,
              42
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011 September 24, Arindam Rej, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 10 Feb 2022:",
          "text": "Liverpool resisted a second-half fightback from Wolves to secure a hard-fought victory and end a run of back-to-back Premier League defeats.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              23
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 November 29, Ian Mitchelmore, “Wales put out of World Cup misery by England as sobering tournament must signal changing of the guard”, in WalesOnline, archived from the original on 16 Jan 2026:",
          "text": "A second-half fightback to draw with the USA offered a hope that swiftly evaporated following a gut-wrenching 2-0 loss to Iran only four days later. It meant only the seemingly impossible would be enough for Rob Page's men to extend their World Cup dream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A campaign of resistance; a counterattack."
      ],
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        ],
        [
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          "counterattack"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fightback"
}

Download raw JSONL data for fightback meaning in English (2.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). 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.