go back

verb

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

That meant an attacker could grant himself full access to Bluvoyix and view shipment data going back to 2007. —Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 31 Jan. 2026

Body camera footage captures the responding officers trying to make sense of the situation, going back and forth between Held and Saracco asking if anyone involved is a federal agent. —Madeline Buckley, Chicago Tribune, 31 Jan. 2026

Cave paintings showing what looks like group dance go back 10,000 years, and evidence of music goes back even further, with flutes made of animal bones dating up to 60,000 years old. —Luis Melecio-Zambrano, Mercury News, 31 Jan. 2026

But in his defense, Paul always claimed that outfielder Charlie Spikes, the principal player going back to Cleveland, was the Yankees top prospect at the tine who just didn’t pan out. —Bill Madden, New York Daily News, 31 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for go back

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