| / English Dictionary |
BACK AND FORTH
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Moving from one place to another and back again
Example:
the old man just sat on the porch and rocked back and forth all day
Synonyms:
back and forth; backward and forward; to and fro
Classified under:
Context examples:
FUS proteins can change back and forth from small liquid droplets (resembling oil droplets in water) to small gels (like jelly) inside nerve cells.
(Mechanism behind neuron death in motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia discovered, University of Cambridge)
Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Others go back and forth between the two.
(Irritable Bowel Syndrome, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)
And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it, White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as the hand rubbed back and forth.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
For Mallet and colleagues, understanding how butterflies pass genes back and forth — a process known as introgression — began with the creation of 20 new "genome assemblies" of various species.
(Study reveals surprising amount of gene flow among butterfly species, National Science Foundation)
This pushes electrons back and forth between the aluminum and the silicon in an asymmetric manner.
(Harvesting Electrical Power from Waste Heat, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is designed to stand in the way of harmful materials leaking into the brain and to regulate the transport of important molecules back and forth between the brain and the blood.
(Brain tumor invasion along blood vessels may lead to new cancer treatments, NIH)
Because the icy moon is not perfectly spherical and because it goes slightly faster and slower during different portions of its orbit around Saturn the giant planet subtly rocks Enceladus back and forth as it rotates.
(Cassini Finds Global Ocean in Saturn's Moon Enceladus, NASA)
And such a tangle—halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, shrouds, stays, all washed about and back and forth and through, and twined and knotted by the sea.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Phenomenon and noumenon were bandied back and forth.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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