back and forth

adv.

1. Backward and forward; to and fro: went back and forth in the rocking chair.

2. From side to side: paced back and forth across the room.

back′-and-forth′ n. & adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adv.

back and forth - moving from one place to another and back again; "he traveled back and forth between Los Angeles and New York"; "the treetops whipped to and fro in a frightening manner"; "the old man just sat on the porch and rocked back and forth all day"

backward and forward, to and fro

Translations

ذهابا وإيابا، إقبالا وإدبارا

sem a tamtam a zpět

frem og tilbage

hin und her

edestakaisin

aller-retour de va-et-vient en long et en large

amo-tamo

oda-vissza

fram og aftur

avanti e indietro

ileri geri

来回

forth

(foːθ) adverb

forward; onward. They went forth into the desert.

back and forth

first in one direction and then in the other; backwards and forwards. We had to go back and forth many times before we moved all our furniture to the new house.

References in classic literature

As thus he strode along in anger, putting together the words he would use to chide Little John, he heard, of a sudden, loud and angry voices, as of men in a rage, passing fell words back and forth from one to the other.

Then up and down and back and forth they trod, the blows falling so thick and fast that, at a distance, one would have thought that half a score of men were fighting.

View in context

He began to roar a song and stamp back and forth before the foot-lights, wildly waving a glossy silk hat and throwing leers, or smiles, broadcast.

View in context

Can you move it back and forth? Can you make it look like a wiggling snake?

Snakes Have Bones!

share back and forth, forth and back, the crack and slurp of clams on

Ditto

Shifts back and forth in time are also problematic, meant to fill up the half-finished puzzle but ultimately as unrevealing as the police investigation at pic's core.

Summit Circle

Using the Stryker IETM can be a real pain when you need to go back and forth between a maintenance task and the repair parts listing.

Making IETM surfing simple

Swing your eyes back and forth, though, reading from the outside in, and you eventually arrive at the painting's title: Pendulum.

Kay Rosen: Gray Kapernekas Gallery

Global positioning system (GPS) instruments placed on the ice mass soon after it became stuck show that it constantly jostles very slightly back and forth, probably as a result of the sloshing of ocean tides, says Emile A.

Big quakes can free grounded icebergs

Letters flew back and forth. Meanwhile, Sevier negotiated fresh treaties with the Cherokee, and the Franklin legislature granted new settlers a tax-free grace period of two years to encourage immigration.

The first free state project: the brief, tumultuous history of Franklin

While Washington's attention has been on the Middle East and North Korea, "Brazil's government [has gone] back and forth on abandoning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and building nuclear weapons; back and forth on offering exile to Saddam Hussein; refused the Colombian government's request to consider the FARC [as] terrorists; shored up [Marxist] President Hugo Chavez with oil shipments during the height of [the] Venezuelan opposition's strike; declared a 'strategic partnership' with Communist China; abandoned scientific cooperation agreements with the U.S.; ...

Terror war's southern front. (Insider Report)