put back
English edit
Pronunciation edit
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Verb edit
put back (third-person singular simple present puts back, present participle putting back, simple past and past participle put back)
- (transitive) To return something to its original place.
- He carefully put the vase back on the shelf.
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
- (intransitive, nautical) To turn back; to return.
- 1813, Robert Southey, The Life of Horatio, Lord Viscount Nelson:
- The French […] had put back to Toulon.
- (transitive) To postpone an arranged event or appointment.
- The meeting has been put back to 5.00 pm.
- (transitive, idiomatic) To drink fast; to knock down alcohol.
- You'll need to put that drink back quickly; it's very nearly closing time.
- 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 13:
- Whisky he sipped at suspiciously, and still had not got an adult taste for; but wine he loved, and he put back champagne as if it were lager, with awful belches and chuckles after each glass.
- (transitive, idiomatic) To change the time in a time zone to an earlier time.
- Don't forget that this Sunday we put the clocks back an hour.
- 1951 June, “The Why and the Wherefore: Railways and Summer Time”, in Railway Magazine, page 429:
- When the clocks are put forward at the introduction of summer time, the long-distance night trains automatically become one hour late, and continue to run late for the remainder of their journeys. […] Similarly, when the clocks are put back in the autumn, the night trains become one hour early.
Usage notes edit
- The object in all senses can come before or after the particle. If it is a pronoun, then it must come before the particle.
Translations edit
to return something to its original place
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to turn back; to return
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to postpone an arranged event
to reset a clock to an earlier time
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