go back

verb

went back; gone back; going back; goes back

intransitive

1

: to return to a place, activity, or situation

I forgot my phone and had to go back.

I left school but later went back.

Once you do this, there's no going back. [=you cannot undo what has been done]

2

: to have existed for a particular amount of time or since a particular period

traditions that go back to ancient times

3

: to have known each other for a particular amount of time or for a long time

We go back 30 years.

They go way back.

4

: to think or talk about something from the past

To understand, you have to go back to when it started.

see also:

go back on

Examples of go back in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

As a result, mothers typically bear the brunt of the caregiving burden in the earliest weeks and months, whereas fathers may take on more responsibility later, around the time many mothers go back to work. —Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 21 June 2026

Fishback showed up at a Donalds campaign event in Lake City on Saturday with a bunch of supporters, shouting through a bullhorn that Donalds was a coward for not debating him and telling him to go back to New York, a reference to Donalds’ childhood in Brooklyn. —Jeffrey Schweers, The Orlando Sentinel, 21 June 2026

So this conflict goes back more than four months, certainly back to October 2023, and in my view, knowing this history, since 1979, 47 years. —NBC news, 21 June 2026

If the state rules hold, an insurer using AI to price your annuity or your motor cover has to test that model for unfair effects and answer for it; if the rules fall, or freeze under federal pressure, that obligation thins out, and the model goes back to being a box only the insurer can see inside. —Dara-Abasi Ita, Forbes.com, 20 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for go back

• aback
• attack
• backpack
• backtrack
• bareback
• blackjack
• brownback
• buyback
• callback
• cognac
• comeback
• cutback