beat back

phrasal verb

beat back; beaten back or beat back; beating back; beats back

: to force (someone) to go back or to retreat by fighting

Our troops were beaten back by enemy forces.

Police used batons to beat the protesters back.

Examples of beat back in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Several hundred Kenyan police officers have deployed to this Caribbean nation, the first members of a U.N.-backed security mission to beat back the heavily armed paramilitaries that control 80 percent of the capital, allow new elections and give Haitians like François a chance to breathe. —Amanda Coletta, Washington Post, 11 July 2024

On Sunday, in a shocking result, the New Popular Front, a coalition of the French left and center, beat back the country’s ascendant far right in the second and final round of snap legislative elections that had been called by President Emmanuel Macron. —Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 9 July 2024

Johnson's allies pleaded with the speaker in April to change the rules to beat back Greene's effort and any other possible future removal threats. —Ken Tran, USA TODAY, 1 May 2024

But in the immediate aftermath of that announcement, Hamas attacked Israel; the war in Gaza erupted; Palestinian casualties surpassed 35,000 and Ukraine continues its fight to beat back Russian invaders. —Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 25 June 2024