drop back

1. 1.

   take position in the rear, as in a military formation or in the line of scrimmage in football

   “The defender dropped back behind his teammate”

   Broadermove
2. 2.

   to lag or linger behind

   “But in so many other areas we still are dragging”

   Synonymsdragtrailget behindhang backdrop behind

   Broaderlag

Questions about drop back

What does drop back mean?

drop back means "take position in the rear, as in a military formation or in the line of scrimmage in football". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for drop back?

Close synonyms include drag, trail, get behind, hang back, drop behind. 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 drop back a common word?

drop back 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.