aback

1. 1.

   having the wind against the forward side of the sails

   “the ship came up into the wind with all yards aback”
2. 2.

   by surprise

   “taken aback by the caustic remarks”

Questions about aback

What does aback mean?

aback means "having the wind against the forward side of the sails". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in aback?

aback has 2 syllables: a-back. The stress falls on "back". In IPA it is /əˈbæk/.

Is aback a common word?

aback is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with aback?

34 words rhyme with aback. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.