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Back out   /bæk aʊt/   Listen
Back out

verb
1.
Move out of a space backwards.
2.
Make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity.  Synonyms: back away, crawfish, crawfish out, pull back, pull in one's horns, retreat, withdraw.  "He backed out of his earlier promise" , "The aggressive investment company pulled in its horns"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Back out" Quotes from Famous Books



... men and gave some help. At 6 steam was up, and I was right glad to see the ship back out to windward, leaving us to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... twice on a crumbling pitch and wiped his eye with a brace, But his guy-rope split with the strain of it and he dropped back out of the race; And I drew a bead on the Meteor's lead, and challenging none too soon, Bent over and patted her garboard strake, and called ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... Steep of Silver-How sent forth A noise of laughter; southern Lougbrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone. Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the lady's voice!—old Skiddaw blew His speaking trumpet!—back out of the clouds From Glaramara southward came the voice: And Kirkstone tossed ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... side issue," said Harry very gravely, "and the main one is serious. Ralph, if all this slope is going to slip down it means disaster to us. You see, after what was said when we took the contract, we couldn't well back out of it, even if we wanted to. Hallo, here's his majesty the surveyor ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... It is scarcely necessary to say that the entire cost of the Constabulary has been borne by the new colonies; or that every penny of this grant-in-aid was paid back out of the development loan raised ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in difficulties tell. One day, her own money having been received, and Amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the moneys expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of her dividend, having contracted engagements for ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was not. But it was a great relief to have the child quiet, so she bore the infliction of the pinching as long as she could. When endurance had found its limit she slipped back out of reach, and as his new plaything receded the boy uttered shrieks of disapproval. There was only one way to stop his noise; Miss Anthony brought her feet forward again, and he resumed the pinching of her ankles, while his yelps subsided to contented murmurs. The performance ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... herself once more with her lover sitting under the sweet-scented acanthus in the quiet night, and forget the sad reality of her present life. And when, with a deep sigh, she laid aside the lyre and came back out of this dream-kingdom, the tears were always to be seen in Kassandane's eyes, though she did not understand the language in which Sappho had been singing, and Atossa would bend down ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... sideways the prisoner forced it through. His shoulders followed easily but when he attempted to draw the remainder of his body through, the hole seemed too narrow, holding him fast. After one or two tugs forward he tried to back out but going in that direction too was impossible. This indeed was an unusual and unenviable predicament, his forward half in the outer world which meant freedom, the other in the dark hollow of the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... it had not been unexpected. Why hadn't he left this little sensitive soul and this little sensitive body alone? And since he hadn't done so, what right had he now to back out of their common adventure? He felt a sudden wild impulse to marry Mrs. Skelmersdale, in a mood between remorse and love and self-immolation, and then a sunlit young woman with a leaping stride in her paces, passed across his ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... preventing the very type of conversation she preferred. She returned to Pollen. What a horrid man he really was! Unangled and amorphous, and underneath, cold! He had a way of framing the woman to whom he was talking and then stepping back out of the picture. One felt like a model in all manner of dress and undress. She laughed softly. "Don't," she begged, "be so mysterious about yourself! Tell me—" she held him with eyes of ingratiating sapphire—"I've always been interested in finding out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... holding 'is breath and not daring to move until the cabman 'ad shut the gate and was driving off up the road, and then 'e got up on the seat and lolled back out of sight. The shops were just opening, the sun was shining, and Sam felt so well that 'e was thankful that 'e hadn't got to ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... think they can do their duty. I shall be with them when the parties get together, and, if anything does occur, the use of Dupont's best will be appreciated by me. This is to be lamented, but, if it comes, we shall not back out." ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... hips that he might not lose a lunge or a parry. For Payton, his face became slowly a dull red. At length, "Ha!" cried one, drawing in his breath. And he was right. The Maitre d'Armes' button, sliding under the Colonel's blade, had touched his opponent. At once, Lemoine sprang back out of danger, the two points dropped, the two fencers stood back to ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... "I won't try to back out, gentlemen," said Risk, laying aside his meerschaum; "for the sooner I tell my story the better, as you will 'have it over with,' and hear a great many good stories before it becomes my turn to bore you again. My story ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... lifetime, and some cracked dishes. Most of the dishes were broken, but a few were only cracked; and I have given Silas Thomas's wife ten old wool dresses and a shawl and three old cloaks. All the other things which did not go into the bonfires went to the Aid Society. They will go back out West." Sally laughed, a girlish peal, and her husband joined. But suddenly her smooth forehead ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Barney showed the greatness of his soul. In the confusion of the moment we had run afoul of a stout young oak, which obstinately menaced the integrity of our axle. It was only possible to back out of the predicament, but Barney scorned the thought of retreat. Not all the blandishments of the Small Boy, whether brought to bear in the form of entreaties, remonstrances, jerks or threats, availed: Barney stood unmoved, and the hatchet was our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... the woman obediently. "I'll try—but it isn't easy to come back out of hell." Lifting her head from the pillow, as if it were a dead weight that did not belong to her, she stared at Patty while her tormented mind made an effort to remember. In a minute her mouth worked pathetically, and she ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... around the tunnel entrance," responded Bud Merkel. "I saw 'em dodge back out of the light." Then, raising his voice, he cried: "Come on, now! None of your tricks! ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... perspired, "and it was sure as hell to," nothing was left but an inky smear. Another held that a fellow could fasten a rubber band on his forearm and attach the notes to those, pulling them down when needed and then letting them snap back out of sight into safety. "But," one of the conspirators was sure to object, "what th' hell are you going to do if the band breaks?" Some of them insisted that notes placed in the inside of one's goloshes—all the students wore them but took them off in the examination-room—could be easily ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... was sick for a home. Don't I belong here? Haven't I longed to get here all my life? Haven't I counted the months and the years till I should be able to 'go' as we say? And now that I've 'gone,' that is that I've come, must I just back out? No, no, I'll move on. I'm much obliged to you for your offer. I've enough money for the present. I've about my person some forty pounds' worth of British gold, and the same amount, say, of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They'll see me through together! After they're gone I ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... you will be the loser a great deal more than I,' replied Thomas, coolly. 'This job isn't to my taste, and if I do it, it will be in my own way. I must wait till my chance comes. It shall be done—that is, if it can be done at all—you may depend on it. I'm not going to back out. Don't be afraid. The risk is bigger for me than for you, and I'm not going to ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... soldiers. The way was not far to the last company of the People of the Axe; moreover, it saw me coming, and, headed by Umslopogaas, who walked behind them all, ran to meet me. Then the soldiers who followed to kill me hung back out of reach ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... something else—and that tied it in. Know that little jolt people sometimes get when they're dropping off to sleep? Of course. Know another time they sometimes get it? When they're snapping back out of a Moment of Truth, eh? I remembered suddenly I'd felt a little jump like that while we were talking to-day. Might have been a reflex of some kind. Of course, it didn't occur to me at the time you could ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz

... out exultantly, "Why, tell him that I say—" But the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied, and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her face—out of her heart—feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror, while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word "Live!"—surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting for, lying far away and still—schooled at last to patience, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... a way his treason, so far, had been unavoidable. He had promised—had even OFFERED to teach the Graham girl the "side stroke." He had not meant to make such an offer or promise, but Fate had tricked him into it, and he could not, as a gentleman, back out altogether. He had been compelled to give her one lesson. But he need not give her another. He need not meet her again. He would not. He would keep the agreement with Seth and forget the tenants of the bungalow altogether. Good old ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... between the two ships, was drawn after the Griper by the eddy produced by her motion, and completely blocked the narrow passage through which we were about to follow. Before we could remove this obstruction by hauling it back out of the channel, the floes were again pressed together, wedging it firmly and immovably between them: the saws were immediately set to work, and used with great effect; but it was not till eleven o'clock that we succeeded, after seven hours' labour, in getting the Hecla ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... something in the notion extremely repulsive to his sense of honour. Under its muffling of headache his mind wrestled feebly with the situation. He wished he had not got drunk last night so that he could see the thing clearly all round. As far as he could see at present the only decent course was to back out of it. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... elbow; "let's back out of this trap. There's no use; he's one of them, and he means ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... independence. When the convention did meet, in November, it broke up in confusion. At the same time North Carolina, becoming alarmed, repealed her cession act; and thereupon Sevier himself counselled his fellow-citizens to abandon the movement for a new state. However, they felt they had gone too far to back out. The convention came together again in December, and took measures looking towards the assumption of full statehood. In the constitution they drew up they provided, among other things, for a Senate and a ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... are all, like swimmers in the sea, 390 Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. And whether it will heave us up to land, Or whether it will roll us out to sea, Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 395 We know not, and no search will make us know; Only the event will teach ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... has its full war supplies and equipments. Servia, however, has been terribly pounded by Austria and but for her good fortune in pushing Austria back out of Servia in December, the Roumanians with their 450,000 well-organized troops might have had to come to her assistance earlier than was prepared for. Indeed, it is now expected that Italy and Roumania will move ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... the village. I suspected what he was going to do, though, and I went straight to the station and found the car standing there. So I took the liberty of getting in it, driving myself to the village doctor, and then back out here. You will find your car, Miss Eileen, standing just where you left it, but I thought you'd like to know it had had the ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... days passed and brought them little business. Occasionally some lonely auto would crawl along the foliage-arched road, its driver looking for a place to turn around so that he might get back out of ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... drive all the boys back out of harm's way, only to see one of the cowboys rush for the dog with a cry that tore at ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... Elfreda descended the stairs, luggage in hand, she experienced a wild desire to refuse flatly to go. The thought that the taxicab ordered to convey them to the station was probably on its way to the house, brought her a remorseful reflection that she had no right to back out at the last ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... I would "consent" to no backward steps. To yield or compromise is weakness, and will destroy us. If a better resumption measure can be substituted for the present one, that may do. But keep cool. We can better afford to be beaten in Congress than to back out. ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... he excels me in power. A dread sorrow to me is this, after all the toils that my heart hath endured. The maiden that the sons of the Achaians chose out for me as my prize, and that I won with my spear when I sacked a well-walled city, her has mighty Agamemnon the son of Atreus taken back out of my hands, as though I were but some sojourner dishonourable. But we will let bygones be bygones. No man may be angry of heart for ever, yet verily I said that I would not cease from my wrath, until that time when to mine own ships should come the war-cry and the battle. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... told her I'd been careful all my life, and I wasn't likely to rush into anything now. She thinks her father's 'most too sanguine about the water, but she doesn't understand the machine—I could see that. She said she was afraid I'd lose something, and she wants me to back out right now. I'm sure I don't know what to do. I ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... was in too deep now to back out. "It certainly is, Wally. It couldn't be hidden. To compute the thrust stresses, I had to know the density of the contents of Cargo Hold One. And here it is: 1.726 gm/cm cubed. Nothing else that I know of has that ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... looked in vain among the crowd, and demanded whether anyone had seen you. Someone said that a lady who was fainting had made her way out five minutes before. The marquis used some strong language to the old lady, and then informed Don Philip what had happened, and made his way back out of the crowd with the aid of the lackeys, and is no doubt inquiring for you in all the houses near; but, as you may imagine, I did not wait. I followed close behind them until they were out of the ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... the car until it is over. Then I shall come sauntering up later on and wish you joy, etc., and Eveley need not know I had a thing to do with it. Just you get her promise, and I shall be witness for you. If she tries to back out we shall sue her ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... isn't tryin' to back out of anythin', Donal. But as we were sayin' to-day when we heard that His Majesty, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, Australia, Canada, and India, as well.—(Looks at Sir Denis who is trying to light a clay pipe) Ahem! ahem! Sir Denis, ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien

... the detective, sauntering up, while Alice and Ruth, rather alarmed at the turn of affairs, shrank back out of sight behind the crowd, that was ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope

... exploits of the Flying Fishes and all that had followed them. "That craft of his seems to be just about as business-like as anything that ever got into the water or under it. I wonder what he is doing with the Russian and German ships in the Thames now. I guess he won't let many of them get back out of there. Quite a young man, too, according ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... the worst throes of her agony. It was some poor consolation to let her sorrow-laden eyes rest on the far-off trees which enshrouded him. What would befall her when night came, and the ship drew back out of the living world into the narrow gloom of deck and gangway, she could not know. She felt that her labored heart would refuse to bear its pangs any longer. If death came, that would be sweet. Her only hope lay in the life beyond the grave. . . . And what a grave! For ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... saw him disappear beneath the doorway of the Taverne des Trois Tigres. I resolved to follow. I had money in my pocket—about twenty-five sous—and I was mightily thirsty. I started to run down the street, when suddenly Theodore came rushing back out of the tavern, hatless and breathless, and before I succeeded in dodging him ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... hands away and stepped back out of her reach. Had it not been for the sheer incredibility of it, she'd have thought that her touch was actually distasteful ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... the riders had been unable to check themselves on the edge of the bluff. The others had now drawn back out of sight. A wounded horse lay kicking on the slope. It was the one upon which Bob had been mounted. The huddled figure of a man, with head grotesquely twisted, sat astride a clump of brush. Another sprawled on the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... with the terrible intentness of a real life-purpose in his brain, was touched by the picture of the far old chivalry, dead long ago. The master's voice grew low and lingering now. It was a labor of love, this. Oh, it is so easy to go back out of the broil of dust and meanness and barter into the clear shadow of that old life where love and bravery stand eternal verities,—never to be bought and sold in that dusty town yonder! To go back? To dream back, rather. To drag ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... young—it's hard to tell about them yet. But the children from about four on up get tired quickly, go to sleep, and when they wake up they've sort of bounced back out of it." ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... the chowkidar pulled him back out of his Nirvana of non-existence, and he called sleepily, "What ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... anticipated flood arrived on the night of December 30th, steam was turned on at the critical moment, the engines worked the stern-wheel, and Lieutenant Ives had the satisfaction of seeing the Explorer, under the bright moonlight, slowly back out of the pit which had been her cradle into the swirling, seething current. As the tide continued to rise, Ives feared the whole flat would soon be inundated, so everything belonging to the expedition was stowed on board till the Explorer's gunwales were ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... Oh deary me, what I have to put up with from her! It's no good getting into trouble with her! ... If you want to avoid any unpleasantness, I can only advise you to consent right away.... You can back out later.... But that would be ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... to hear M. Colbert speak in not overscrupulous terms of M. Fouquet, allowed this remark to pass by unanswered, and merely listened. Colbert noticed the effect it had produced, and hastened to back out, saying that M. Fouquet was not on all occasions as blamable as at the first glance might seem to be the case, inasmuch as at that moment he was greatly occupied. The king looked up. "What do you allude to?" ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... the invitation with some degree of fear and hesitation, which I endeavoured to conceal, as I thought it was too late to back out, and that it would never do to weaken at that point, whether they were friends or foes. Upon entering the dugout my eyes fell upon eight as rough and villanous-looking men as I ever saw in my life. Two of them I instantly recognized as teamsters who had been driving in Lew Simpson's train, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... not the girl. He had followed a false lure that his own unbridled imagination had lit. The only thing to do was back out of it as gracefully as he could, and the poor excuse of "looking around" was the best one he could lay his hand ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... his ten-dollar raise growing to gigantic proportions. He had visions of himself at the end of four years hustling to "make good" "over two thousand dollars." For the first time he questioned the wisdom of promoting himself. But he could n't back out now. He almost damned Honey's thrift. He would be piling up a debt which threatened to become an avalanche and swamp him, and for which he would get no equivalent but temporarily increased adulation. How could he nip this awful thing in the bud? He did n't see any way out of it unless ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... brought me up with a round turn, and I felt my heart working like the tiller-ropes in a gale of wind. "Well," said I, after a pause, "how did you back out when you parted with your wife?" "You may well say 'back out,'" said he. "I was taken slap aback—it came over me like a clap of thunder. I was half inclined to play the shy cock and desert, and had it not been for the advice of the good old man, I should have been mad enough ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... rather sympathise with the latter. They may not be over wise, but still it seems to me that Paris ought to hold out as long as bread lasts, without counting the cost. She had invited the world to witness her heroism, and now she endeavours to back out of the position which she has assumed. I have not been down to Belleville to-day, but I hear that there and in the other outer Faubourgs there is great excitement, and the question of a rising is being discussed. Flourens ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... a voice shouted. "We're going to wreck the Three Bar—and you with it if you stand in the way. Get back out ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... boats not to let them come too near. This, though we did not mean it, brought us to a fight with them, and they shot a cloud of darts at our boats. We did not fire at them, yet in half an hour they went back out to sea, and then came straight to us, till we were so near that they could ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... which she had got back to again. They were admiring her, in her dress of the querulous old nurse, and told her how they never would have known her. But there was an insincerity in the effusion of some of the more nervous women, and in the reticence of the others, who were holding back out of self-respect. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... be my wife, you must know that all that is mine will be yours; so how can a few thousand francs more or less now make any difference, though if you have any feeling concerning it, you can pay me back out of your first month's dress allowance!" and I tried ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... himself and said, "I am a servant of Christ. If thou hast been sent against me, behold, here I am." And the beast with its daemons fled away, so that in its haste it fell and died. Now the death of the beast was the fall of the daemons. For they were eager to do everything to bring him back out of the desert, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... pushed her way into the mob and threw the rope off her husband's neck, and began to talk with vehemence in German. For a moment the drunken fellows hung back out of respect for a woman. Then Bill Day was suddenly impressed with the fact that the duty of persuading Mrs. Wehle to consent to her husband's execution devolved ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... you, capting," said he, "is to let me stay back out of sight when you grab Bud, so't he won't suspicion that I had anything to do with bringin' you-uns onto him. He's a bad ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... upon his own arms and legs, and go forth and suffer with them, and fight and die? To die were easy. To fight?. . . . Was it then come to that? He was no longer a man of peace, but a man of the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of blood and of crime! He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it suddenly seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, "This is a brother of Cain." For the first time in his life he had a shrinking from the light, and from the sun which he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... of all comes from Arundel, near Colesberg, where Generals French and Brabazon with the cavalry column—for it is nearly all mounted—are gradually sidling and coaxing the Boers back out of the Colony. They are a powerful combination: French's distinguished military talents, and Brabazon's long and deep experience of war. So, with this column there are no frontal attacks—perhaps they are luckier than we in respect of ground—no glorious victories (which the enemy call victories, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... log in the open grate with the same poker, and the blaze that most unexpectedly shot up at this interference with a well-regulated fire, attending strictly to its own affairs, caused both young men to leap quickly back out of reach ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... know how this long battle has gone. The Jesuit Churchmen lost their lead, and were thrown back out of the civil and political sphere. We know, too, what effect these blows to the Catholic organisation have had upon the activity of the Catholic idea. With the decline and extermination of the predominance of Churchmen in civil affairs, there began a tendency, which has since become deeper ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... the ideal of him as a portrait of Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. They mean essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to be called of men, Rabbi, in mere hearing of the mob; and especially that they hated to be drawn back out of their far-away thoughts, or forward out of their long-ago thoughts, by any manner of "daily" news, whether printed or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in both men, (for I must always speak of Scott's creations as if they were as real as himself,) than any of their superficial ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve," said Mr. Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'll ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... to him, and point with great earnestness first to something at their feet, then to the backbone of rocks; and it so happened by mere accident that his finger took nearly the direction of the very spot where the observer of all his movements stood. The man started back out of sight and called in a low voice to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... when that famous book came out, 'The Vestiges of Creation.' So far as I can understand the arguments of Mr. Darwin, they have simply been an endeavor to eject out of the idea of evolution the personal work of the Deity. His whole endeavor has been to push the Creator farther and farther back out of view. The most laborious part of Darwin's attempt at reasoning,—for it is not true reasoning,—the most laborious part of his logic and reasoning, is intended to eliminate, as perfectly as any of the atheistical authors have endeavored to do, the idea of design. Now, setting revelation aside, ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... late to back out now. Go on and have a good time," said Amos, picking up his dinner pail. Lydia watched him down the road. Suddenly she realized how lonely her father must be ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... pleaded quickly. "Back out of it some way, and give me just this one evening to myself. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... fellow you are!" Felicite cried angrily. "It was your own idea to do it, and now you back out! I tell you that you'll never do anything without me! Go then, go your own way. Do you think the Republicans would spare you if they ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... point with the antlers crowding well forward, but firmly held a hair's breadth behind it. Thus each bloom is fertilized with the pollen from some other, insuring cross-fertilization. The bumblebee takes his toll in honey, but when he comes to back out he has trouble. If you will listen close by you will hear him buzzing and burbling like an overheated teakettle as he struggles. The arching filaments of those fuzzy stamens have tangled his short ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... to fear," rejoins her father, with a feeling of relief. "So, Francesca, we may as well ride back out and meet them. I suppose it is, as I've been conjecturing; the tribe is returning to its old quarters. I wonder where they've been, and why so long away. But we shall now learn all about it. And we'll have their company with us, as far as their talderia; possibly all the way home, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... afeard, man?" asked Mooney, stretching out his hand in the direction of the voice. "You're not going to shirk?" The other avoided the touch, and shrank away, still staring. "You ain't going to back out after you swored it, Dawes? You're not that sort. Dawes, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... to spy the weaving pillow, which she had left upon a stone before the door. To divert himself (for idle people do mischief often to divert themselves) he took up the pillow, and entangled all the bobbins. The little girl came back out of breath to her work; but what was her surprise and sorrow to find it spoiled. She twisted and untwisted, placed and replaced, the bobbins, while the footman stood laughing at her distress. She got up gently, and was retiring into the house, when the silver laced footman stopped ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... has to know about, and so they are marked out on the inside of the globe. What they want now is a special teacher, and after having come here, and had the Queen Dowager notified, it wouldn't do to back out, you know." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... thing," said Jack hitching up his trousers; "but I was afeard as how he would back out, and that would be just the wrong thing for the admiral; he'd go ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... we have come to a clear understanding—namely, that for the present it is standing fast. I certainly had a notion that I was an interloper, and as soon as I saw the vast deal you had done in the way of preparation, that it became me as a man of fair dealing, to back out. This does not, however, appear to have been your wish, but on the contrary that we may still make a joint work of it by-and-by, when we have leisure, both of us, to engage in it heartily—tooth and nail. I shall therefore keep it in my thoughts, and endeavour to shape my future plans ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... court-life and a belief in the saving grace of contact with royalty can go, therefore, there are Canadians fully prepared for the establishment of a court "in their midst." The society of the province was, in fact, in an imflammable eagerness to kiss hands, and back out from the presence of royalty, and perform the various exercises pertaining to admission to court circles, and in a proper state of Jingo distrust of the wicked Czar and his minions—which in the Colonies is now one of the marks of gentility—when the magician, Lord Beaconsfield, determined ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... thundered before he got so far in that he couldn't back out. "I said your ancestors sent me as emissary—I am not one of your ancestors. Do not try to harm me or the wrath of those who have Passed ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison

... I only wish you'd heard what he told me—that's all—about his mother being ill, and nobody letting her do any work because of where his father is, and his baby brother ill, poor little darling, and not enough to eat, and everything as awful as you can possibly think. I'll save up and pay it all back out of my own money. Only do forgive me, all of you, and say you don't despise me for a forger and embezzlementer. I couldn't ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... headed, 'Our Special Investigator.' You see, they've started a special investigator of their own, and he's got hold of a lot of little facts the police seem to have overlooked. The man who writes all that—I mean the Special Investigator—was a famous 'tec in his time, and he's just come back out of his retirement o' purpose to do this bit of work for the paper. You read what he says—I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he ends by getting that reward! One can see he just loves the work of tracking ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... had on the spot, in his friendliness, invented one for her use, presenting it to her with a look no more significant than if he had picked up, to hand back to her, a dropped flower. "You ask if I'm likely also to back out then, because it may make a difference in what you and the Colonel decide?"—he had gone as far as that for her, fairly inviting her to assent, though not having had his impression, from any indication offered him by Charlotte, that the Assinghams ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... Stoddard's voice with that of the doctor's. Shade and Pap Himes still hovered nervously about the window, staring in and hearkening to all that was said, Mavity Bence had wept till her face was sodden. She herded the other girls back out of the way, but watched everything ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... the tower to fall on the wicked," said Pony's father, laughing. "When it came to the worst, Jim didn't take the melons any more than Pony did. And he seems to have wanted to back out of the whole affair at ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... friends. The moor ceased to be a great, vast, awful solitude, it smelt of heather, and was alive with the innumerable sounds of happy living creatures—and best of all, mother herself seemed to come back out of the infinite, to comfort the heart ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... sociable than a fishing-fleet. The boats overtake each other, like horses in a race. They gallop in rivalry. But for the most part they keep together, and move like a travelling town over the sea. As likely as not they will have to come back out of the storm into the shelter of the bay, and they will ride there till nightfall, when every boat becomes a lamp and every sail a shadow. In the darkness they hang like a constellation on the oily water. They become a company of ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... the Walton girls and Lloyd Sherman and Betty Lewis have talked about you," she went on hurriedly, eager to justify herself. "They made me feel that you were—well—er—sort of like royalty you know. That one ought to courtesy and back out from your presence ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... a few flakes of snow. While he still carried the sword-stick and the rest of Gregory's portable luggage, he had thrown the cloak down and left it somewhere, perhaps on the steam-tug, perhaps on the balcony. Hoping, therefore, that the snow-shower might be slight, he stepped back out of the street for a moment and stood up under the doorway of a small and greasy hair-dresser's shop, the front window of which was empty, except for a sickly wax lady in ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... didn't ask me whether I'd go. He took it for granted. That's probably why I didn't back out. Nor did I tell him that the three life insurance companies which had foolishly and trustingly accepted me as a risk merely on the strength of a good constitution were making frantic efforts to compromise on the policies. They felt hurt, those companies: my healthy ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Sir Stephen, as gravely. "I speak so confidently because I see my way clearly before me. I generally do. When I don't, I back out and lie low." ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... from the enemy struck the poor man and stretched him dead, so that Molly had no sooner caught sight of her husband than she saw him fall. She ran to the gun, but scarcely had reached it before she heard one of the officers order the cannon to be wheeled back out of the way, saying that there was no one there who could serve it as it ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... Bear. The spear bit deep into the vast shaggy chest and the air was filled with such a shuddering roar that several more pieces of stone fell from the roof; and after all it was not the spear, but the sand and sharp bits of stone which Umpl flung in his eyes that made the animal back out, growling and brushing his head in a rage. Sptz and her mother lost no time in heaping into the entrance all the stone blocks that lay around, till it was so small that they had to take some out in the morning ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... about Olive?" asked Mr. Easterfield. "She has never said positively that she is going. I most earnestly hope that she will not back out because Lancaster can not go. If she ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... did," he declared; "changing her mind wasn't her style; she wasn't one of your weak womanish creatures. She wouldn't have said she was coming to live in Mercer, and then tried to back out of it! No, she simply wrote Blair's name by mistake. Her mind wandered constantly in those last days. And seeing what she had done, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... its performance, filed into the pen after those branded had filed out. As the first to enter reached the farther end a stout bar dropped into place, just missing the animal's nose; and as the last cow discovered that it could go no farther and made up its mind to back out, it was stopped by another bar, which fell behind it. The iron heaters tossed a hot iron each to Red and Johnny and the eight were marked in short order, making about two hundred and fifty they had ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford



Words linked to "Back out" :   recede, retire, pull away, crawfish out, move back, draw back, back



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