walk back
"walk-back" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“walk back” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To withdraw or backpedal on a statement or promise.
Corpus desk
Index EN-walk-back · walk back · English
walk back · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "W" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | walk back |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “walk back” in English
Rare enough to double-check
walk back is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for walk back in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is walk back, spelled W-A-L-K- -B-A-C-K.
Definition
- 1To withdraw or backpedal on a statement or promise.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, back.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how walk back appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Did Obama walk back his support of Cordoba House? As you know, the Internets are alive with the claim that Obama has now walked back his support of Cordoba House, and I've gotten tons of emails telling me that my earlier praise of the speech is no longer operative. But did he really walk back what he said last night?
That seemed comforting — but then the president over the weekend walked back his promise.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.