back down

Questions about back down

What does back down mean?

back down means "move backwards from a certain position". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for back down?

Close synonyms include back up, back off, chicken out, back off, pull out. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is back down a common word?

back down 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.