stand back

1. 1.

   stay clear of, avoid

   “Keep your hands off my wife!”

   “Keep your distance from this man--he is dangerous”

   Synonymskeep one's eyes offkeep one's distancekeep one's hands offstay away

   Broaderbe
2. 2.

   stand away from an object or person

   “He stood back to look at her”

   Broaderstand

Questions about stand back

What does stand back mean?

stand back means "stay clear of, avoid". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for stand back?

Close synonyms include keep one's eyes off, keep one's distance, keep one's hands off, stay away. 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 stand back a common word?

stand 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.