ABACK • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Aback

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/əbˈæk/ Listen

adverb

Aback adv.

Toward the back or rear; backward. "Therewith aback she started."

Behind; in the rear.

(Naut.) Backward against the mast; said of the sails when pressed by the wind.

To be taken aback.

(a)

To be driven backward against the mast; said of the sails, also of the ship when the sails are thus driven.

(b)

To be suddenly checked, baffled, or discomfited.

noun

Aback n. An abacus. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Aback'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Aback" Quotes from Famous Books

... believe me, Mrs. Jennifer, mum," Mrs. Dibble had said, "fear that child does not know—so Mr. Thomas hisself says; an' set an' smile he did, an' talked to his lordship as if they'd been friends ever since his first hour. An' the Earl so took aback, Mr. Thomas says, that he couldn't do nothing but listen and stare from under his eyebrows. An' it's Mr. Thomas's opinion, Mrs. Bates, mum, that bad as he is, he was pleased in his secret soul, an' proud, too; for a handsomer little fellow, or with better manners, though so old-fashioned, Mr. ...

— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... spite of Sir Mordred and all his power, and they put him aback, so that he fled and all his people. When this battle was done, King Arthur let bury his dead, and then was the noble knight Sir Gawaine found in a great boat lying more than half dead. When Sir Arthur wist that Sir Gawaine was laid so low, he went unto him and made ...

— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... were stumbling enough, should at every point be punctuated by a deep bellow of cheers such as might have delighted the most trained and the most accomplished orators in the House. The House itself was at first taken aback by this outburst of deep-throated and raucous cheers, and after it had sufficiently recovered from its surprise discovered that it all came from one bench—the front bench below the gangway. On this bench there were gathered together a number of the younger ...

— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... Stratton was taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question. He had come to regard Jessup and himself so completely at one in their desire to penetrate the mystery of Lynch's shady doings that it had never occurred to him that his intense ...

— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... cheery manner we were mightily taken aback, especially when another rider came in a few minutes later with a letter to me from ...

— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

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