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Use back-off in a sentence

Definition of back off:

  • (verb) move backwards from a certain position; "The bully had to back down"
  • (verb) remove oneself from an obligation;

Sentence Examples:

Her mischievous propensity was remarkable, as she often stole into the officers' cabin and pulled books down from the shelves, tearing the backs off and then destroying the leaves.

We accordingly dropped back off the hill to our saddle stock, when Priest said that if he only had a certain horse of his out of the band we had been trailing he would promise me buffalo veal if he had to follow them to the Pan-handle.

Her eyes were red, her eyelids heavy with tears, her face was pinched and narrower, the corners of her mouth had a most piteous droop, her very hair, pushed back off her forehead, seemed sad, and hung in spiritless masses about her neck and ears.

He was in a rather slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.

Then I hit upon the mirror, ripped the back off it, and made my cryptogram on it with a pin.

He had also intended to demand access to direct communications; but the forbidding glare aroused in the hawkish face as he approached the subject, made him back off.

However, she backs off and for the third time has this medicine dropper worked on her smarting eyes.

I fell back off of the horse and could not extricate myself from this dreadful condition; the horse kicked with all his might while I was tied so close to his rump that he could only strike me with his legs by kicking.

He was so interested that he forgot himself and pushed his hair straight back off his forehead with the gesture that had become an unconscious mannerism, spoiling utterly the plastered effect which he had with so much pains given to his hair.

Two weeks later she brings it back, and explains that Prince got hold of it one afternoon and chewed just a little of the back off, but says that she doesn't think it will be noticed when the book is in the bookcase.

Back off from the pine slab, you Three Bar soaks, and give parched folks a chance.

He backed off, but the compelling power of interrogatory, especially of hers, retarded him.

The men obeyed, and the boat was backed off the whale just in time to escape the blow of its tremendous flukes as it dived into the sea, the blue depths of which were instantly dyed red with the blood that flowed in torrents from the wound.

The boat was backed off at once, but it had scarcely got a few yards away when the astonished fish whirled its huge body half out of the water, and, coming down with a tremendous clap, made off like lightning.

Then she backed off, and stood gazing down upon the two of them adoringly.

Then Pal backed off, bleeding in several places, while the big raccoon, panting and disheveled, still stood with back against the tree.

A demonstrator had the back off from one of the big Lambert-Howell sprayers.

Buster, seeing that some of the more timid were still fearful, backed off a short distance and sat down on his haunches.

The cop backed off, looking in a bewildered fashion for his victim, who was nowhere in sight.

He went close, stared into the appalling depths of wind, mist, and the sea, backed off, cocked his astonished head, ran a lean hand in bewilderment through his gray curls, and then flashed about on Skipper Tom.

What she saw, as she sat up, was a short, elderly man with a solicitous, gentle face; the coat sleeves were turned back off his wrists and his linen shirt jutted out between the unfastened upper buttons and buttonholes of his waistcoat.

She would have backed off, and, slightly down by the head, finished the voyage at reduced speed, to rebuild on insurance money, and benefit, largely, in the end, by the consequent advertising of her indestructibility.

An amplified voice filled the valley and ricocheted back off the walls of the mountains, casting eerie echoes down on the lone man on the desert.

The holdups were backing off, burning a lot of powder but doing no harm, and I guessed that their horses were in a bluff about five hundred yards from the track.

The life-savers, who had almost reached the ship, backed off a little, knowing that they could not help the passengers now and fearful of being drawn under by the suction themselves.

The situation of a ship when, in stays, she falls back off the wind again, and gets into irons, which demands practical seamanship for her extrication.

Nothing daunted, the ram backed off and rushed at the frigate again.

His dark grizzled hair was pushed back off his hot brow, which he fanned with his straw hat.

And the long line flew back, straightened far behind him, and again lengthened out, the single yellow-and-gilt fly settling on the water just above the motionless trout, who simply backed off down-stream.

The men on the wrench then back off and the horseshoe shim supports the weight of the machine.

Apparently, the younger fighter arrived first; he backed off from the scuffle brandishing a piece of packing box.

Lambert backed off a little, for the way of the range had indeed become his way in that year of his apprenticeship, and its crudities were over him painfully.

Jim began backing off as soon as he had it in his hand, watching Spence alertly.

Five minutes later, and he backed off, coming quickly down the little declivity.

He tried to imagine an Australian aborigine in a hat on a hot day, decided the aborigine would have too much sense, and got back off the subject again.

Many times the Arctic Bird would run upon a riffle (where the water runs very shallow over the gravel), to be temporarily baffled and obliged to back off and seek another course.

The stableman backed off a little, his pasty face writhing with tics.

The words seemed definitely ominous to Gerry, but before he could say anything more the old man had bowed ceremonially and then stepped back off the landing platform.

Time went on, and hair-dressing again altered; the hair was now taken in four parts: first the hair was drawn well back off the forehead, then the two side divisions were curled neatly and dressed to fall over the ears, the fourth group of hair was neatly twisted and so made into a small knot holding the front hair in its place.

This was the end of the little spur-line, and while the train backed off down the track, staggering across the switch, Ben Connor looked after it, leaning upon his cane just forcibly enough to feel the flection of the wood.

On another occasion, when with Kermit, we inspected three rhinos at close quarters, came to the conclusion that none of them would make good specimens, and backed off cautiously a couple of hundred yards to a big ant-hill.

The only rational countermove now was to back off and "survey prevailing conditions."

He backed off a few yards and stood glaring up at Peddler among the branches, snorting contemptuously and shaking his grotesquely misshapen antlers as if daring his antagonist to come down.

The wigs of the full ringlet style were still the fashion, but a simpler character is noticeable, the hair being combed back off the forehead and allowed to fall in looser waves.

When you should be sitting with your book in your hand trying to learn somewhat, if I do but turn my back off goes the dunce to the wood, and stays there for whole days, frightening me out of my wits!

Swooping lower and lower, while still the foolish fawns stared innocently at the dancing shadow, he suddenly flapped his wings about the tinier fawn, startling him terribly, but not enough to make him back off the cliff.

A vast amount of damage was done, though, when they ran stem on to the nearest opponent with an awful crash and then backed off, to see dimly through the smoke that the Austrian adversary was evidently sinking.

While the six hundred passengers on the boat were mostly tumbling about the decks in a shrieking panic the captain was shouting at the steamer that it should not back off and leave the rent exposed for the water to enter.

He, too, was known as a hitter, and when he stepped to the batter's line the fielders were accustomed to backing off, ready for a terrific drive.

Peter was about to make some violent pleas against Sam's 'perverseness,' as he called it; when seeing the Major, he suddenly adjusted his crutches, stroked down his queue, and backed off to another part of the room.

The shattered ranks backed off a few yards, then closed up and started to hold their place out in the open against the constantly increasing masses of the enemy back of the breastworks of the Angle.

Turn to the right and there, back off the street within a small compound that seemed to lie flat and low, was a German school still being conducted by black-bearded German priests.

A horrible accident happens when owing to bad steering the trackers are pulled back off the narrow ledges cut into the face of the precipices, which at times border the river, so that they fall into the rapid.

Pawl backed off like the place he was standing was too hot for his feet.

He wondered which was right, to be for the green or for the maroon, because Dante had ripped the green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell one day with her scissors and had told him that Parnell was a bad man.

He backed off and rested on his toes, gingery and alert.

The coach was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way.

Her wavy brown hair was somewhat disarranged, and she pushed it back off her temples with a slight gesture of weariness.

Her hair was brushed back off the forehead; but the long dark tresses came from behind the ears, and rested on her covered shoulders.

Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell, washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me, when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears.

It was usually so intent on feeding that it paid no attention to passers-by; it was often necessary to back off to a reasonable distance before shooting one, and I shot several with squib charges in an auxiliary barrel.

If "No", the bell was struck and the boat backed off, while the woodman and roustabouts exchanged a blue-streaked volley of vituperation.

When he had finished, and perceived that no more was forthcoming, he backed off reluctantly from the door and began smelling around the window-sill, pushing his curious nose tentatively against the glass.

The boat catches the wind, starts suddenly up-stream, as suddenly changes its mind, veers about, rams the landing, backs off, charges a group of boys on skates, and then stands motionless with its head into the wind and laughs so that its sail flaps.

He grasped an iron stanchion and kicked the Grenadier in the jaw till the steer backed off, a reformed character.

These two natives had their hair tied up in a kind of chignon at the back of the head, the hair being dragged back off the forehead from infancy.

He backed off a few feet, the muscles of his calves straining to maintain a purchase on the slippery, heeling decks.

Near here, while the road was being built, a fine span of horses balked on the grade, and like all balky horses, proceeded to back off the road.

They kept backing off until the wagon went over the brink, and then there was a little scratching of loose stones, the kaleidoscope of legs and hoofs, a little rush and rumble, and the world was wealthier by one less balky team.

This, along with the fact that O'Hara's breath would back off a polecat, was enough for Ben.

He backed off several steps, stared intently at Ernie, rather palely, it seemed to the latter.

I eased the gyros in; she backed off the rail with a screech of ripped metal.

Instead of sweeping, his vessels were dropping mines of their own in the fields, and then, backing off to avoid the fire from the batteries if they could, they exploded them by electric contact, to blow up the American mines with the shock.

On the opposite side of the hill, as they were scorching down with the speedometer needle playing around the fifty-eight mark, a team and wagon containing a farmer and his family were almost backed off the road.

The latter stood it for a few minutes stolidly and then commenced to back off, followed by the officer who continued to lay on the blows as fast as possible.

People coming back off a mountain climb, including two waterless bivouacs and a pull through the smoke and ashes of a volcano, are not in ball trim, either as to costume or to cleanliness.

You can bet those Japanese backed off a little.

The engagement of the friction cone with the fast pulley causes it first to act as a brake, and the strap having been moved upon the loose pulley it then exerts sufficient force to revolve the backing-off cone in the contrary direction.

The mechanism for actuating these parts is based upon the principle of the push and pull of spiral springs, a partial application of which was shown in the case of the backing-off rod.

After the die has been backed off the nipple can be removed from the holder by unscrewing the center with a monkey wrench.

Then we backed off as the flukes went into the air, came down on the surface thunderously, and swept from side to side.

There had been no question that they had to swing back off their original orbit toward Titan when the meteorite slashed open both of their hydrazine tanks.

The skies cleared beautifully, but the sea continued to freeze so swiftly and solidly that we had the greatest difficulty in getting ahead, and many times we had to back off into our own water to get up sufficient impetus to break through.

Debarkation was rushed to lighten the ship, and she was backed off on the rising tide that evening under her own power.

We drove them back off the plains and harried them along the forest edges and in the upland clearings where they came to lay eggs.

He would back off, paw the ground, shake his slobbering head, and come snorting at the tree again and again.

The brushing of the child with the plumes was repeated six times, and he was then backed off the blanket over the line of meal and set upon the stool, which had been removed from the blanket, and was afterward given a pinch of meal and told to stand and look at the ants which had been extracted from his body, and to sprinkle the meal upon them.

He did not hesitate, but seizing an officer by the collar, and wresting his sword from him by main force, kept his body as a shield while he rapidly backed off under a heavy fire from the perilous neighborhood.

Wrenching the cylinder from the stunned guard's belt, he backed off swinging the unfamiliar weapon in a menacing arc.

He backed off, swinging the unfamiliar weapon.

Then it ran up to the boy whining and licked his hand; but as Uncle Ephraim appeared the dog backed off and began to bark again as though it were not, after all, quite sure whether to greet the boy as a friend or an enemy.

With the scavengers safely backed off, she had a little more time in which to consider what to do next, and returned to the stallion and took a braided hemp rope from the saddle, and knotted one end through a leather pack strap.

Godwin backed off, shoving himself through the encumbering waters, even his spacious lungs straining by now for air; but before he surfaced he meant to finish this brute.

Johnny Hope backed off warily, retreating toward the sun-dried creek bed, a jagged brown scar across the parched grassland.

Says the extraordinary clothes, backing off and speaking snappish.

This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off, turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.

This vessel struck in the Irish channel, but she was backed off with little difficulty, and got safe into her port.