backpedal | Idiomator

Meaning: (intransitive)To pedal backwards on abicycle.1984, Roald Dahl,Boy:The road was on a hill and the boy was going down the slope, and as he flashed by he startedbackpedallingvery quickly so that the free-wheeling mechanism of his bike made a loud whirring sound.; (intransitive)To step backwards.The player had tobackpedalbefore catching the ball.; (intransitive,idiomatic)To distance oneself from an earlier claim or statement; back off from an idea.Though initially adopting a hard-line stance, the politician soon started tobackpedal.1999February 15, Simon Hacker, “Rover 75”, inThe Guardian‎[1]:The best car sound of 1999 is that of a new Rover 75 being furiouslybackpedalledthrough the motoring page of the Sunday Times.2009November 2, Ian Black, “Arab anger as Hillary Clinton backs Israel on settlements”, inThe Guardian‎[2]:There were harsher comments from Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas: "The negotiations are in a state of paralysis, and the result of Israel's intransigence and America'sbackpedallingis that there is no hope of negotiations on the horizon."2019April 4, Maegan Vazquez, “Trump backpedals: ‘I don’t think we’ll ever have to close the border’”, inCNN‎[3]:President Donald Trumpbackpedaledon his threat to shut down the southern border, saying Thursday that now he doesn’t think the US will “ever have to close the border.”2023March 29, Anna Cooban, “Adidas does rapid U-turn in Black Lives Matter logo dispute”, inCNN‎[4]:Adidas isbackpedalingfast over its latest attempt to protect its iconic three-stripe mark.

Examples:

EN: Don't backpedal.
ES: No te desdigas.
EN: You backpedal a mile a minute!
ES: Apenas puedes esperar!
EN: And I now have to backpedal and say like 'no, your asshole is like your vagina. That's totally cool'.
ES: entonces retrocedí y le dije 'no, tu ano es como tu vagina eso es totalmente genial'.
EN: -Pakistan's trying to backpedal.
ES: - Pakistan intenta dar marcha atrás.
EN: Ah, nice backpedal.
ES: Ah, bonito arreglo.
EN: -Don't backpedal, Margene.
ES: No des marcha atrás, Margene.
EN: Okay, I don't want to have to, you know, backpedal and repeat myself, but... It's like I said when you were with Coco:
ES: No quiero tener que, ya saben, retroceder y repetirlo de nuevo pero es como lo que dije cuando salías con Coco.
EN: Nice backpedal.
ES: Linda enmienda.
EN: You lie every single day, every time you make an excuse for why you're talking to yourself or when you backpedal to explain how you know something you shouldn't or when you're looking right at somebody that no one else can see.
ES: Mientes cada día cada vez que inventas una excusa para explicar por qué hablas contigo misma o cuando te retractas para explicar cómo sabes algo que no deberías o cuando ves a alguien que nadie más puede ver.
EN: Dude, don't backpedal, you know.
ES: No es una loca. Amigo, no des marcha atrás.
EN: Backpedal, backpedal."
ES: Cambia, cambia."
EN: - Don't try to backpedal on this, Schuester.
ES: - No se eche para atrás, Schuester.
EN: And then backpedal while maintaining a smile and dialing 911 in your pocket.
ES: Y luego marcharte sin dejar de sonreír y marcar el 911 en tu bolsillo.
EN: Officially, I'm going to backpedal, but only on page two.
ES: Oficialmente, tengo que dar marcha atrás. Pero solo en la página dos.
EN: Oh, don't you ever backpedal your ego with me, missy.
ES: No des marcha atrás conmigo, señorita.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).