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Fall back   /fɔl bæk/   Listen
Fall back

verb
1.
Fall backwards and down.
2.
Hang (back) or fall (behind) in movement, progress, development, etc..  Synonyms: dawdle, fall behind, lag.
3.
Move back and away from.
4.
Retreat.  Synonyms: drop off, fall behind, lose, recede.
5.
Have recourse to.  Synonyms: recur, resort.
6.
Go back to bad behavior.  Synonyms: lapse, recidivate, regress, relapse, retrogress.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fall back" Quotes from Famous Books



... the hope of bequeathing something to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood—but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect—that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... coast inhabited by a superior race of natives, had vanished. As the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria rounded his course from south to west, and from west to north, so the picture his fancy had painted faded; and he found himself compelled to fall back upon the conception of a mode of transit ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... where you are," said Nastasia, seeing him fall back on the couch. "If you are ill, do not go. What is ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... I worked at our lessons by ourselves. We always had her mother to "fall back upon," as we said. When we took up the study of Italian in order to be able to read Dante—moved thereto by the attractions of the long volume of Flaxman's illustrations of the 'Divina Commedia'—we had to "fall back" a good deal on Mrs. Arkwright's ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... he assured his guest. "I'm glad you saw those yearlings. There was one reason why that young German stuck it out. He had to. You had your father's money to fall back on, and, I imagine not only that your feet itched, but that your chief weakness lay in that you could afford ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... sweet guide, who smiling shot forth beams From her celestial eyes. "Wonder not thou," She cry'd, "at this my smiling, when I see Thy childish judgment; since not yet on truth It rests the foot, but, as it still is wont, Makes thee fall back in unsound vacancy. True substances are these, which thou behold'st, Hither through failure of their vow exil'd. But speak thou with them; listen, and believe, That the true light, which fills them with desire, Permits not from its beams their feet to stray." Straight to the shadow ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... foothills of the Jebel Hamrin (March 25), this comfort was not destroyed. These two hard actions were but the sweeping away of ants' nests from before a house; our position now secured, we should fall back, and rest in Baghdad. The Turk might try to turn us out; but that was a very different affair, and it would be months before he could even dream of ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... bonitoes, which are following them. To try to escape from their foes, they rise out of the water, and fly fifty yards or more, till, their wings becoming dry, they cannot longer support themselves, when they fall back again into the sea, if they are not in the meantime picked up by a frigate-bird or some other winged enemy. I have known a dozen or more fly into a boat, or even on to the deck of a ship; and very delicate they are when cooked, though ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... She sinks heavily into the seat he has pointed out to her, and lets her head fall back against the cushions. "However, when you come to think of it, that means a great deal," ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... a heap of confused and jointless limbs in the furthest corner of the room, lay the wretch, a raving maniac;—two men keeping their firm gripe on him, which, ever and anon, with the mighty strength of madness, he shook off, to fall back senseless and exhausted; his strained and bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets, the slaver gathering round his lips, his raven hair standing on end, his delicate and symmetrical features distorted into a hideous and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... written verses by the score, at whose smile he had swelled with pride, at whose careless laugh he had trembled with shame? She was terribly changed, she looked positively old—what John called old. As he sat by her side talking and wondering whether he would fall back into those same grooves of conversation he had associated with her formerly, he felt something akin to pity for her, which he had certainly never expected to feel. She was not the same as before—even the tone of her voice was different; she was gentle, pathetic, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... considerable reinforcements, that the Austrians received, determined Joachim to fall back. He retreated ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... with it," observed Mr. Lindsay. "That and one or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there was something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... weeks he had been unable to hear or play any music, and he was like a boiler at high pressure, near bursting-point. Certain insistent phrases bored into his brain like gimlets, pierced his skull, and made him scream with agony. After these attacks he would fall back on his pillow, dead tired, wet through, utterly weak, breathless, choking. He had placed his water-jug by his bedside, and he took great draughts of it. The various noises of the adjoining rooms, the banging of the attic ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... support combustion, and, secondly, by the obligation to let sufficient ascensional power remain in the gases which are left to pass out through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements, and so to produce burners with very short or longer ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... for his unconscious magic. Much better this, after all, than really going to London and seeing the pictures themselves. They would not disappoint me; I love and honour even the least of English landscape painters; but I should try to see too many at once, and fall back into my old mood of tired grumbling at the conditions of modern life. For a year or two I have grumbled little—all the better ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... go one better next time, with a repetition, or rather an aggravation, of the horrors of war and the cost in life and treasure, turning the sub-continent into a second vast Algeria, with perhaps such another "Abd El Kadr" to subdue, and without any reserve asset, as now, to fall back upon towards reimbursing the expense. Their expulsion should, however, not be effected without giving some fair notice affording them time for the realization of their estates. As to the Dutch language, it will not entail any excessive hardship if it is equally banished as an ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... Canadians bolted at once, but the Indians kept up their fire from behind the shelter of the trees. Gage brought up his two cannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery, began also to fall back. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... of heavy blows at such different points that he appeared to be ubiquitous. His force met that of Watson unexpectedly, and a fight ensued. Watson had the advantage of field-pieces, and Marion was obliged to fall back. Reaching a bridge over the Black River, he checked his pursuers with telling volleys long enough to burn the bridge. Then a peculiar contest took place. The two forces marched down the stream, one on each ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... the schemer saw himself reduced to submission, for the present at least; and more than ever he felt the necessity of Evelyn's fortune to fall back upon, if the chance of the cards should rob him of his salary. He was glad to escape for a breathing-while from the vexations and harassments that beset him, and looked forward with the eager interest of a sanguine and elastic mind—always ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... music. At nine the usual visiters—news, war, or rumours of war. Consulted with P.G. &c. &c. They mean to insurrect here, and are to honour me with a call thereupon. I shall not fall back; though I don't think them in force or heart sufficient to make much of it. But, onward!—it is now the time to act, and what signifies self, if a single spark of that which would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... sadly. "We must just set to work, re-stock and re-build. Not so difficult to do so as it might have been, however, owing to that considerate uncle of mine. We're better off than some of our poor neighbours who have nothing to fall back upon. They say that more than 3000 persons have been reduced to destitution; 500 farm-houses have been burnt and pillaged; 900 horses, 55,000 sheep and goats, and above 30,000 head of cattle carried off, only a few of which were ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... husband greatly enjoys her intellectual tastes, and, without stint or jealousy, encourages them; only he would not have her "odd," nor so very different from "other ladies of our acquaintance." He would have her study; he "doesn't believe a woman should fall back in her intellectual life any more than a man." He would have her paint, and practise, and study; and since he provides abundant help, he thinks she may. He will buy any book, or set of books, to aid her; ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... wall until the dead body struck the stonework. Success for a moment seemed to be his. He had plugged one narrow slit through which the bullets came, and he cheered his comrades on. They came, but only to have their leader fall back into their arms. Through the slit Ellerey had driven his sword with all his strength, piercing the living through the dead. It had been an ugly rush, but for the present it was ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... of paraffin, with smaller supplies of assorted articles—the whole sufficient to afford provision for such a party as ours for about six or eight months if well administered. In case of necessity this would undoubtedly be a very useful reserve to fall back upon. These stores are somewhat scattered, and the hut has a dilapidated, comfortless appearance due to its tenantless condition; but even so it seemed to me much less inviting than our old Discovery ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... the face of the disesteem of their fellows. Apparent exceptions to the rule are met with, especially among people with strong religious convictions. But these apparent exceptions are scarcely real exceptions, since such persons commonly fall back on the putative approbation of some supernatural witness of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... leap up, miss Lop-Ear, glance against a limb, and fall back to the ground. I danced up and down on my lofty perch with delight. It was a game! The Fire-Man was throwing things at Lop-Ear as we sometimes threw things at ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... English we call so the plant which {109} has come to us by chance from the same country, the type of mere senseless prolific activity, the American water-plant, choking our streams till the very fish that leap out of them cannot fall back, but die on the clogged surface; and indeed, for this unrestrainable, unconquerable insolence of uselessness, what name can be ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... signified by a name. And, in this case, the fact is the Sisyphaean process, in the course of which, the living and growing plant passes from the relative simplicity and latent potentiality of the seed to the full epiphany of a highly differentiated type, thence to fall back to simplicity and potentiality. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... proposal, you mean. Well, we'd better fall back upon His Majesty's or Granville Barker. Poor Charlie! It's hard lines on that boy, Bertha—he's really keen ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... Widgeon excitedly, as all of a sudden the shark was seen to leap clear out of the water, and fall back with a tremendous splash, not head first, so as to dive down, but on its flank, sending the water flying, while directly after the sea in that direction became tremendously agitated, sending waves toward them sufficiently big to make ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... full conviction of these important facts that the Texan, imitating the action of his servant, unfastened the scuttle, and noiselessly let it fall back behind him. Then he thrust his head and shoulders through and scanned the half of the roof in ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... the points at which he could be attacked. The fight lasted eight hours. At last Sir Eyre Coote's first division turned the enemy's left flank, by the capture of the village of Pillalore; while his second turned their right, and Hyder was obliged to fall back. But this was done in good order, and the enemy claimed that it was a drawn battle. This, however, was not the case, as the English, at night, encamped on the position occupied ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... of even this slight concession on the part of the boy, and walked along briskly. Presently, however, he began to fall back, talking with Jimmie, who was a few paces behind. Then, before very long, the little fellow missed Collins. He had disappeared in a dark alley. Ned worried over this when informed of the fellow's strange and contradictory conduct. The man might have gone to make report to ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... being driven from this point, the company was rallied on the wagon-train. Major Thornburgh then gave orders to Cherry to hold his position and cover the retreat of Lieutenant Lawson, who was ordered to fall back slowly with the company horses ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... nodded indifferently, as though her curiosity on the subject had subsided as quickly as it had arisen. "Well, I hope you will all have a good time." She yawned, and let her fair head fall back on the pillow. "Now I shall try and have a sleep. Please tell Phil not to disturb me. Tell him I've got one of my worst headaches. You are sure to be back late, and I don't want to ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... in a second assault, sweeping over it with consummate dash and skill. This division then repulsed strong counter attacks before the village and cemetery of Ste. Etienne and took the town, forcing the Germans to fall back from before Rheims and yield positions they had held since September, 1914. On Oct. 9 the 36th Division relieved the 2d, and in its first experience under fire withstood very severe artillery bombardment and rapidly took up the pursuit of the enemy, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... and perceived the suffering damsel, and the knight and the dogs, who in a trice were in their midst. They hollaed amain to dogs and knight, and not a few advanced to succour the damsel: but the words of the knight, which were such as he had used to Nastagio, caused them to fall back, terror-stricken and lost in amazement. And when the knight proceeded to do as he had done before, all the ladies that were there, many of whom were of kin to the suffering damsel and to the knight, and called to mind his love and death, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... the Midland counties, 30,000 strong, were to form a separate army, and were to march at once to a spot between Windsor and Harrow. The rest were to gather at the point of danger. The coast companies were to fall back wherever the enemy landed, burning the corn and driving off the cattle, and avoiding a battle until the force of the neighbouring counties joined them. Should the landing take place as was expected in Suffolk, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... Sally to-day, almost to sullenness, and when she began to grow weary in the early afternoon, there was no reserve strength on which she could fall back. She suddenly became aware that she wanted support, aid, comfort. Finally she spilled a great armful of "empties" down on the long drain-board of the sink, turned to the wall, and buried her face in her hands. The cook, Bert, though ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... to seek out the enemy and fight him on his own ground, he marched as far as Victoria. But by the transfer of the seat of the war to Vera Cruz, he was deprived of the greater portion of his army, and was obliged to fall back on Monterey. Here he remained until February, when, having received large reinforcements of volunteers, he marched at the head of 4,500 men, to meet Santa Anna; and on the 20th, took up a position at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... working about her bottom, I got my air-pipe coiled over a large sliver from the stoven hole, and could not reach it with my hands. Every time I sprang up to remove the hose, my tender would give me the 'slack' of the line, thus letting me fall back again. He did not understand his duties, and did not know what my signals on the life-line meant. It was two hours and a half before I was relieved, and there was not a moment that I was not looking to see the hose cut by the ragged wood. It's a strange feeling you have down there. You go walking ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels

... and summons all the able-bodied men of the village to the frontier. In the second act, the dogs of war are loose. The French have been holding the mill against a detachment of Germans all day, but as night approaches they fall back upon the main body. Dominique, who is a famous marksman, has been helping to defend his future father-in-law's property. Scarcely have the French retired when a division of Germans appears in the courtyard of the mill. The captain notices that Dominique's hands are black ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... they came east, Twenty-four Emirs and Sheiks at the least, And they hammer'd away At Sir Ingoldsby Bray, Fall back, fall edge, cut, thrust, and point,— But he topp'd off head, and he lopp'd off joint; Twenty and three, Of high degree, Lay stark and stiff on the crimson'd lea, All—all save one—and he ran up a tree! "Now count them, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... reason, at the idea of any such classification. Certainly all would name Wordsworth, and a few would add Clough, whilst the out-door plays of Shakespeare would come in, and we should soon be called on to feel that for this sort of congenial open-air poetic company we have still to fall back on the vast resources of English verse. Somehow, as yet, our own poets have not gotten fully into imaginative relation with what is peculiar in our own flowers, trees, and skies. This does not lessen our joy in the masters of English verse, because, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... the stir of ferryboats and pleasure craft on the river, my hopes rose high that somewhere in this teeming hive there would be a place for me. What kind of a place I had myself no clear notion of. I would let that work out as it could. Of course I had my trade to fall back on, but I am afraid that is all the use I thought of putting it to. The love of change belongs to youth, and I meant to take a hand in things as they came along. I had a pair of strong hands, and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... the Trojans hail the arrival of both brothers, before whose fierce onslaught the Greeks soon fall back in their turn. Meanwhile Minerva and Apollo, siding with opposite forces, decide to inspire the Trojans to challenge the Greeks to a single fight, and, after doing this, perch upon a tree, in the guise of vultures, to watch the result. Calling for a suspension of hostilities, Hector dares any ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... place called Pakan Badar, distant about half a day's journey from the capital, where they were directed to entrench themselves. From this post they were driven by the country chief, who advanced rapidly upon them with several thousand men, and forced them to fall back to Padang Siring, where the king was collecting an army, and where a battle was fought soon after, that terminated in the defeat of the royal party with great slaughter. Those who escaped took refuge in the castle along ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... your own head," exclaimed Waller, loading his rifle. He fired. The next moment we saw the man fall back upon his deck. There was then a great deal of shouting on board the schooner; her helm was put up, and, the breeze freshening, she began to pay off before the wind. She had not got round, though, before we ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... hoarse laugh the man sprung up the steps to fall back as a pistol flashed in his face and roll back to the bottom, knocking his ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham

... last steps of the narrowest of winding stairs a little man in black screwed himself into the armoury. I was startled, but not altogether frightened. I felt myself grasping my own sword somewhat nervously in my left hand, as I abandoned the great one, and let it fall back with a ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... importance to posterity—that of one of the great diarists. Now there is no human failing upon which we look with more affectionate lenience than that of keeping a diary. All of us, in our pilgrimage through the difficult thickets of this world, have moods and moments when we have to fall back on ourselves for the only complete understanding and absolution we will ever find. In such times, how pleasant it is to record our emotions and misgivings in the sure and secret pages of some privy notebook; and how entertaining to read them again in later years! Dr. Johnson himself advised ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... woven steel; let the shields go behind the back; let us fight with bared breasts, and load all your arms with gold. Let your right hands receive the bracelets, that they may swing their blows the more heavily and plant the grievous wound. Let none fall back! Let each zealously strive to meet the swords of the enemy and the threatening spears, that we may avenge our beloved master. Happy beyond all things is he who can mete out revenge for such a crime, and with righteous steel punish the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... and was beginning to feel numbly—to ache dully. Then I found that I could move one of my legs, then the other, and eventually, with a mighty effort, I could almost raise myself. But, for the moment, I had to fall back. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... said in effect the same thing. Unity to him was a pure concept, and any one who thought it real would believe that a triangle was alive and could walk on its legs. Without proving unity, philosophers saw no way to prove God. They could only fall back on an attempt to prove that the concept of unity proved itself, and this phantasm drove the Cartesians to drop Thomas's argument and assert that "the mere fact of having within us the idea of a thing more perfect than ourselves, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... have observed that, labor being itself an object of valuation, a species of merchandise indeed like any other, to take it as the principal and efficient cause of value is to reason in a vicious circle. Therefore, they conclude, it is necessary to fall back on ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... man's riches have taken wings and vamosed, when all his old uncles are used up, and he has no prospective legacy to fall back upon, he is generally cut by the acquaintances of his prosperous days. The memory of "what he used to was" is seldom cherished, and the unhappy victim of prodigality discovers to his ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... bespattered with filth; we may pick them up from the mud into which they have fallen and seek to purify them, but to many eyes they will still seem dirty. One result of this tendency is that we have no simple, precise, natural word for the love of the sexes, and are compelled to fall back on the general term, which is so extensive in its range that in English and French and most of the other leading languages of Europe, it is equally correct to "love" God or ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... told me now that has put this into my head, my darling. I had made it all up in my own mind. Then, you know, when your husband is engaged with those business affairs—in the city—or with his own friends—you would have your mother to fall back upon, Elinor. I should have just the moments perdus, don't you see, when you were doing nothing else, when you were wanted for nothing else. I promise you, my darling, I should never be de trop, and would ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... in May 1864, and five days of manoeuvring and skirmishing about Resaca and Rocky Face ended in Johnston's retirement to Resaca. A fortnight later the same manoeuvres, combined with constant "tapping" at the Confederate defences, caused him to fall back again. At Adairsville the same process was gone through, and Johnston retired to Cassville, where he offered battle. Sherman was far too wary to be drawn into an action under unfavourable conditions. If each ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... counting on. You are as sure of that mail carrier's berth as you would be if you were to ride the route for the first time to-day; but if you should happen to slip up on it, you'd be glad to have the seventy-five dollars to fall back on." ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... reigned among all the English commanders. Webb whimpered to be allowed to fall back on the Hudson with his six thousand men; Loudoun cowered in New York with his large army, and could think of no better way of defending the northwest frontier than by intrenching himself on Long Island. There was not an Englishman in the Ohio or the St. Lawrence Basins. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... stripped of every friendly voice?" she said. "Of course, it's always more lonesome in the winter, but it's never been so bad as this, for we haven't even Calthea to fall back on. Things didn't turn out as I expected them to, and I suppose they never will, but it always was my opinion, and is yet, that nothing can go straight in such a crooked house. This very afternoon, as I was coming from the poultry-yard, and saw Lanigan's ladder still standing ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... had gained at Aspern half a victory; and the fact that the Austrians had not been beaten—that Napoleon had been compelled to fall back with his army and to take refuge on the island of Lobau, was regarded as a victory, which was announced in the most boastful manner. But if it was a victory, the Austrians did not know how to profit by it. Instead of uniting their forces and attacking Lobau, where ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... know that rising from the ranks puts a man's family in a false position, and they generally fall back again. All this is unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at, and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to be done till you can hear from Ceylon ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his money for the horse," said Juggut Khan, "I—even I, who am penniless—will pay him. Good-by, Brown sahib!" He leaned over and grasped the sergeant by the hand. "Take my advice, now. I know what is happening and what has happened. Fall back on Bholat at once. Hurry! Seize horses or even asses for your men, and ride ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... provided I do not say it myself. He will certainly never forget this day's lesson as long as he lives, while if I had only led him to think of all this at home, my lecture would have been forgotten the next day. Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing is out of ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... obtaining diverse objects that are agreeable and disagreeable. When one withdraws his senses from the objects of (those) senses as the tortoise its limbs from all sides, even his is steadiness of mind. Objects of senses fall back from an abstinent person, but not so the passion (for those objects). Even the passion recedes from one who has beheld the Supreme (being).[146] The agitating senses, O son of Kunti, forcibly draw away the mind of even a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Besides this, finger-nails an inch and a half long, guarded with an elaborate silver sheath, are decidedly impedimenta in the way of athletic success. No,—when the daily quantum of reading has been achieved, a Chinese student has very little to fall back upon in the way of amusement. He may take a stroll through the town and look in at the shops, or seek out some friend as ennuye as himself, and while away an hour over a cup of tea and a pipe. Occasionally a number of young men will join together ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... of the unexpected use of the stiletto by Corriveau. What if the Intendant, suspecting her complicity in the murder of Caroline, should refuse to marry her? Were it not well in that desperate case to have Le Gardeur to fall back upon? ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... a fatal thing, one of those misconceptions which often decide the fate of a battle. The company of Captain Whittlesey, on the extreme left, which was suffering most severely, was ordered to fall back. The entire little army, which was being pressed hard now, seeing the movement of Whittlesey, began to retreat. Even without the mistake it is likely they would have lost in the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... thus early an opportunity to look upon God? Surely this thing was neither man nor beast, so what could it be then other than the Creator of the Universe! The ape-man watched the every move of the strange creature. He saw the black men and women fall back at its approach as though they stood in ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... as they dismounted at the stable, "if we have to fall back on corn beef for our Christmas dinner, I can grace it with a timely story. And if we have a saddle of venison, it will fit the occasion just ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... Gakdul was naturally strong, and with the aid of art was made perfectly impregnable, forming a place to fall back upon in case of need. The camels, it has been explained, utterly declined all friendly advances, but the affections of the company Kavanagh belonged to were not on that account destined to grow utterly rusty for want of use, since a dog had attached himself in every sense of the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... the same time, some of them are gifted with sufficient personality to possess an unshaken faith in themselves, in their strength, which keeps them from letting the responsibility of their torments fall back upon society. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... there was furious firing, then, at about eight o'clock the Austrian gunners got the range of the Serbian left flank with their field pieces, which was compelled to fall back. But just then timely reenforcements arrived from the rear, and the Serbians dug themselves in. By evening the Serbians had lost over a thousand men, though they had succeeded in taking 300 prisoners and several ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... a despondent unwillingness to decipher those orders that are sealed letters to us, or a lively faith that one will pass through the peril once more? Always, in spite of the premonitory signs and the prophecies that seem to be coming true, we fall back automatically upon the cares of the moment and absorb ourselves in them—hunger, thirst, the lice whose crushing ensanguines all our nails, the great weariness that saps ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... his shrunken body, knew that he stooped and shuffled, realized that he had paid the inevitable, the inexorable price for the secret. His wine of dreams had evaporated.... He sifted the coarse gold between his fingers, letting it fall back into the pan. Was it for this that he had ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Rambaud and Mrs. Addison. She liked the latter somewhat better, solely because it was a little easier to talk to her. Mrs. Rambaud Aileen knew to be the wiser and more charitable woman, but she frightened her a little; presently she had to fall back on Mr. Lord's help. He came to her rescue gallantly, talking of everything that came into his mind. All the men outside of Cowperwood were thinking how splendid Aileen was physically, how white were her arms, how rounded her neck and shoulders, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... staunch the bleeding, before I fainted away, to be revived again by hearing a horrible crash as if someone had slipped upon the wet stairs. The door was nearly driven in, but the fall continued, and I could hear Mallam cursing horribly as he tried to get up, but only to fall back and lie silent for a time. I must have fainted again, but the desire for life was strong, and I forced myself to see to my injury. It's a horrible wound, Carey, and bled so that I thought it would never stop; but the bone was sound, and ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... we made arrangements with a boatman for the hire of his punt during the short time that we intended to remain in Weymouth, as we wished our tubular boat to come into use only when we had no other to fall back upon. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... to see him. Then he swills around at hotel bars, stays with some of his lady whores, and then comes back here and expects me to pull him into shape again, to make his nose a little less red. He thinks he can use my place to fall back on when he can't go any longer, to fix him up to do some ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... fatal shafts with deadly effect. Thus has the Indian of the far-west lived, and thus is he living still. But the trader and the rum-bottle, and the rifle and the white man are on his track; and, like his red brethren who once dwelt east of the Mississippi, he must fall back yet farther, and gradually decline before the approach ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... "Fall back!" shouted the Lieutenant to his regulars when he saw the equestrian avalanche coming. "Each man take ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... campaign to make. This was, in substance, to go back until high ground could be reached on the east bank of the river, fortify there and establish a depot of supplies, and move from there, being always prepared to fall back upon it in case of disaster. I said this would take us back to Memphis. Sherman then said that was the very place he should go to, and would move by railroad from Memphis to Granada. To this I replied, the country is already disheartened over the lack of success on the part of ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... brave officers who had done the boarders a good deal of mischief fell at a pistol shot from Mr. Amblen; this loss of his leadership caused a sensible giving way on the part of his division, and his men began to fall back. The other officers, including the captain, who fought with a heavy cutlass, held out for a short time longer; but Christy saw that it ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... he wanted him to swear to. Walter listened to Small's words as to his doom. He felt that he should die of indecision. The perdition of a man of his stamp is to have to make up his mind. Such men generally fall back on some one more positive, and take all their resolutions ready-made. But here Walter must decide for himself. For the constable was already calling his name; the court, the spectators, and, most of all, Dr. ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... case, intelligible instruction in the use and management of chest resonance is hardly to be expected. Teachers of singing are obliged to fall back on purely empirical instruction on this topic. This usually takes the form of a description of the sensations experienced by the singer when producing tones in the chest voice. How this description of the singer's sensations is applied, is discussed ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... Reading Chaucer, I have often wondered what standard of that sparsely educated day fixed the standard by which he could be read aloud. And by the bye who, of this more cultivated day, is authority for fixing the standard? Not the Dictionaries, for they differ. I dare say that after all we must fall back on taste. In the national metropolis of America, I have noticed a half-dozen different pronunciations among educated people, so distinct as to be readily noticed. But the best opportunity to be had is in an army gathered from all quarters of the country, or even from all quarters of a section, ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

... not quite see the outer door. But after she opened the door he saw Maggie fall back with an inarticulate cry, her face suddenly blanched with astounded fright. And then Larry experienced one of the greatest surprises of his life—a surprise so unnerving that he almost loosed his hold upon Red Hannigan. For ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... sometimes be risked to serve a strategic end. In June, 1864, General Hunter was operating with a Federal army in the Shenandoah Valley, and owing to shortage of supplies was forced to fall back. In so doing he uncovered the National Capital, and General Early was sent by the Confederate Commander-in-Chief to capture Washington. General Grant took immediate steps to protect the capital by the dispatch of troops, and to further this end, General Lew Wallace,[1] ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... the overseer was struck in the arm. A second volley was about to follow, when a yell arose from the meadow and the slaves under Clinker came on, shooting as well as they could on the run. The windows of the mansion, now wide open, received considerable attention, and two guerillas were noted to fall back with yells of either fright ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic

... glass eye. This eye he turned towards the maid, perhaps because it was steady. He also had a nervous way of drawing one hand down his face till he lowered his jaw prodigiously, after which, like the handle of a knocker, it would fall back to place with quite a thump. He did this twice as he stared at ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... Egyptians" and by their kinsmen of the Shepherds, and treated the inhabitants with a barbarity more execrable than that of the latter, setting fire to cities and villages, casting the Egyptian priests and prophets out of their country, and compelling Amenophis to fall back upon Ethiopia. After some years of disorder Sethos (also called Ramesses from his father Rampses) son of Amenophis came down with the King from Ethiopia leading great united forces, and, "encountering the Shepherds and the unclean people, they defeated them and slew multitudes of them, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... learnin' to think for myself; an' that's all the satisfaction I could get out of him. He was some like other edicated persons I've met up with: when you tried to get him to do something useful, he'd fall back on his book knowledge, roll out a string of high steppin' words, an' then ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... could neither advance nor recede, it would revolve in the everlasting circumference from which it would never issue. In that case God would be dependent on His work; it would be co-eternal with Him; and so we fall back into one of the propositions most antagonistic to God. If the world is imperfect, it can progress; if perfect, it is stationary. On the other hand, if it be impossible to admit of a progressive God ignorant through a past eternity of the results of His creative work, can there be a ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... does not answer. She stares at me with wide-open eyes; and my impulsive phrases strike with such force against her stupefaction that each one of them seems by degrees to fall back upon myself. I in my turn am left utterly dumfounded; she is so ill at ease that I myself become nervous; her astonishment embarrasses me; I secretly laugh at my own discomfiture; and I end by ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... my opinion. Needless to say, I should not tell Mannering so. But to what other conclusion can a reasonable man come? I do not, of course, deny the supernatural, but it is weak-minded to fall back upon it as the line of ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... not the only person present who had to fall back on inherent caste for their manners of the moment, but Tony was the only one that gave an audible gasp. Even Peggy and Norma smiled, and greeted the Founder's granddaughter in ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... before and work behind, with leisure to fall back upon; but the leisure, without the work, can no more be enjoyed than a surfeit. Life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to the idle poor man, who has no work to do, or, having work, will not do it. The words found tattooed on the right arm of a sentimental beggar of forty, undergoing ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... This were easy (men tell me) to say— "Give her all, throw your chance up, fall back on her heart!" (Say my friends) "she must change! after night follows day—" No such fool! I am safe set in hell, for my part— So let heaven do the worst now ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Progress stopped. Fall back on a tributary. River flooded. A new range. Rudall's Creek. Reach the range. Grass-trees. Wild beauty of scene. Scarcity of water. A pea-like vetch. Name the range. A barren spot. Water seen from it. Follow a creek channel. Other creeks join it. A confined glen. Scrubby and stony hills. Strike ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... feel my cock, every now and then raise her head to look at it, fall back again as if satisfied, and go ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... I could do that. It wouldn't cost a fortune, and I've got that hundred dollars in gold to fall back on, besides ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... to fall back was given, none could have been heard. Man by man, the survivors withdrew at will, sifting through the trees into the cover of the ravines, among the wounded who could drag themselves back; among the skulkers whom nothing could have dragged forward. The left of our short line had fought at ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... copies of the Illinois pandering and other white slave laws, the state legislation will soon be uniform upon this subject, the United States government should be alive to the situation also. At present it has only the immigration laws regulating the importation of immoral women to fall back upon. A federal law under the interstate and foreign commerce act should be passed at once. The federal government has better and more effective machinery for getting at the facts in the foreign and interstate traffic ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues, become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long as the family remains under active care ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... withdrew from it into the Castle of Edinburgh; and the Lords of the Congregation, stronger than they were originally by the accession of the Duke of Hamilton and the Earls of Morton and Huntly,[80] made one more 'Band' or Covenant. In it for the last time they fall back on liberty of conscience; for all they ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... their regal heads. And a couple of flunkies in long-tailed coats and knee breeches and white wigs are mooning round, fixing things up ship shape. And just then a tall lady comes sauntering out of the bushes, and she strolls up close and the flunkies bow and fall back and she says something about everything being now ready for Lady Gwyndolin's garden party and departs the same way she came. And the second she's out of sight, me and Sweet Caps can't hold in no longer. We busts through the roadside thicket and tear acrost that open place, licketty-split. It seems ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... visiting the castle, he set out to examine the ancient encampment at Ardoch—the Lindum of the Romans. Finally, all hopes of getting him settled at a distance being given up by his friends, he had to fall back upon Cromarty, where he was yet once more appointed to a clerkship. The establishment with which he was now connected was a large hempen manufactory; and it was his chief employment to register the quantities of hemp given out to the spinners, and the number ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... at last, "is to fall back to Great Meadows. I believe it to be better fitted for defense than this place, which is commanded by half a dozen hills, and where we could not hope to hold out against artillery fire. At Great Meadows we can strengthen ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... temperament has thought he knew and has supplied us with hypotheses, and with successive clues to the mystery of Being, and with many systems of thought, we know now that none of them were adequate to supply even initial steps, and so, for the most part, we fall back on the knowledge that comes to us from living, from being, from knowing appearances, from action, and from feeling; on that position in short which Schopenhauer thought so despicable in a human being, i.e., Refuge in the common sense attitude, and practically the giving up of philosophy. ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne

... papa had memory of no other. He was not harsh to the little scholar, having a vast fund of patience learned upon the bench, and was at no pains whether to conceal or to express his disappointment. "Well, ye have a long jaunt before ye yet!" he might observe, yawning, and fall back on his own thoughts (as like as not) until the time came for separation, and my lord would take the decanter and the glass, and be off to the back chamber looking on the Meadows, where he toiled on his cases till the hours were small. There was no "fuller man" on the bench; his memory was ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I defend has to fall back on a certain ultimate hardihood, a certain willingness to live without assurances or guarantees. To minds thus willing to live on possibilities that are not certainties, quietistic religion, sure of salvation ANY HOW, has a slight flavor of fatty degeneration about it which has caused it to ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... an officer losing his camels loses one month's pay, and must leave his kit on the ground, as he has nothing wherewith to replace his loss. You can, therefore, imagine what a great relief your bill proved to me, as I shall always have it to fall back upon. I bought a very nice little Cabool horse at Kotree, from one of the Ameers' disbanded Beloochees. He is very hardy, and accustomed to this country, and not particular as to his food, which is a capital thing, as most of the Arab ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... new responsibilities, and on the day after, the broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will strike hard. I know it, and you will know it. Whatever may happen to me in the future, I shall feel that I can always fall back upon the shoulders and hearts of the class of '56 for their approval of that which is right, and for their charitable judgment wherein I may come short in the discharge of my public duties. You may write down in your books now the largest percentage ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... at the price mentioned in the act. It cannot, indeed, be denied, that, at present, every soldier is a burden to the family on which he is quartered, in many parts of the kingdom; but, it may be reasonably hoped, that the present scarcity will quickly cease, and that provisions will fall back to their former value; and even, amidst all the complaints with which the severity and irregularity of the late seasons have filled the nation, there are many places where soldiers may be maintained at the stated rates, with very little hardship to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... Spaniards, but he found that every Spaniard was as sorry for that accident as we were, and they would take off their hats when the Maine was mentioned, and look pained and heart-sick. I tell you the Spaniards are about as good people as you will find anywhere, and dad has concluded to fall back on Christopher Columbus for a steady diet of talk, cause if it had not been for Chris we wouldn't have been discovered to this day, which might have been a darn good thing for us. But the people here do not recall the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... their five, the Grays will take the offensive," he said. "For us, the defensive. La Tir is in an angle. It does not belong in the permanent tactical line of our defences. Nevertheless, there will be hard fighting here. The Browns will fall back step by step, and we mean, with relatively small cost to ourselves, to make the Grays pay a heavy price for each step—just as heavy as ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... "It is great fun. I've done it myself, in my day. But these fish are very good to eat. Any kind of fresh meat is a good thing, when you know there's nothing better than salted meat to fall back on. You'll see how good they are, ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins

... needs, I shall shoot you the first slant I get. Then I can hold my own against this precious preacher of the Don here and his confederates. But should the strain of holding my life against these prove too great I shall fall back in good order into the wood, and make my way to the nearest magistrate, where I will ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... project of a schism was not found feasible; the cardinals at Rome were too numerous, and Wolsey only succeeded in gaining four, three French and one Italian, to join him in signing a protest repudiating Clement's authority so long as (p. 202) he remained in the Emperor's power. It was necessary to fall back after all on the Pope for assent to Henry's divorce, and the news that Charles had already got wind of the proceedings against Catherine made it advisable that no time should be lost. The Emperor, indeed, had long been aware of Henry's intentions; every care had been taken ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... "Fall back, my lords," said the Queen to those who surrounded her, "and do you speak on. What hath the Earl to do with this guilty intrigue of thine? See, fellow, that ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... struck by the cogency of Frank's reasoning. Signing to him to fall back, he whispered to Lieutenant Summers. The latter listened, then nodded. He stood silent a ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... abyss. But it is true, nevertheless, that this is the second battle we have lost, and the second time that we are obstructed in our advance. But I swear here—and may Heaven record my oath!—that this shall be the last time that I fall back; that I will specially pay Bonaparte for my grief and anxiety for the past month, and that I will bring him as much trouble as one man can to another. What a fearful account Bonaparte has to settle with me! how much he has to pay me! But, no matter; my sword is ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... distinctly seen rushing out from the nucleus, and then flowing back into the tail. M. Rosa described the streams of light as resembling long hair brushed upward from the forehead, and then allowed to fall back on each side ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... not do to hesitate longer. The moment had come for him to fall back on the last and only recourse left, and much as he regretted the act (for it was at variance with his principles), he now made it promptly and with a skill, a cunning and a delicacy that could ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... a noisy laugh, 'must fall back on the shareholders, whose interests I have to guard. One can't be too careful in these ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... Cynthia's effect upon her host, Mrs. Friend could not make up her mind. He seemed attentive or amused while she chatted to him; but towards the end their conversation languished a good deal, and Lady Cynthia must needs fall back on the stubby-haired boy to her right, who was learning agency business with Mr. Parish. She smiled at him also, for it was her business, Mrs. Friend thought, to smile at everybody, but it ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward



Words linked to "Fall back" :   ebb away, retrovert, ebb down, revert, drag, pull away, withdraw, recede, employ, utilise, utilize, get behind, trail, turn back, move back, ebb out, lean back, recline, draw back, apply, drop back, retreat, retrograde, follow, retire, use, drop behind, fallback, return, pull back, ebb, hang back, gain, ebb off



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