Dictionary

pull back en · VERB

Meanings

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pull, back.
   • Her nightgown was thin, and she felt chilly as she stepped across the hall, pulling back the curtain that shielded Gabriel's room. 1994, Linda Winstead, Guardian Angel:
   • Typically, this meant that the teams were turning around two sets a week, with a train rolling into the depot on a Sunday for what Hinze describes as a "big strip-out". This would pull the carriages back almost to the bare bones. 2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 27:
   • What's more, I pull back the sheets to take a quick but suspicious gander at Bunny, and she's wearing a pair of my briefs. 2002, Dennis J. Barton, Cola Wars:
   • An uncircumcised man should always take special precautions when bathing to pull back the foreskin and clean carefully around the glans. 2006, Ruth K. Westheimer, Pierre A. Lehu, Sex for Dummies:
2. To retreat.
   • Central African armed forces (FACA) troops were forced to pull back from the town and were planning an operation to retake it, the source said. 2010, Africasia, Birao is a garrison town near the border with Chad and Sudan:
3. (transitive) To pass (the ball) into a position further from the attacking goal line.
   • December 1 2010, Paul Fletcher, BBC News, Ipswich 1-0 West Brom Jason Scotland should have scored after Tamas advanced purposefully down the right before pulling the ball back into the path of his team-mate, who shot straight at Myhill.
4. (transitive) To score when the team is losing.
   • Feb 19 2007, Al-Jazeera, Stylish Sevilla pull level with faltering Barcelona Ronaldinho pulled back a goal for Barca in injury time with a classy free-kick, but it was clearly too little too late to prevent their third Liga defeat.

Forms

Deriveds

pull back the curtain