beat back

phrasal verb

beat back; beaten back or beat back; beating back; beats back
: to force (someone) to go back or to retreat by fighting
Our troops were beaten back by enemy forces.
Police used batons to beat the protesters back.

Examples of beat back in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web But Raziq beat back the suicide bombers and brought stability to Kandahar. Matthieu Aikins Victor J. Blue Peter Ganim Krish Seenivasan Steven Szczesniak, New York Times, 22 May 2024 Mosby, the council president since December 2020, has been trying to beat back challenges from both Councilman Zeke Cohen and former Councilwoman Shannon Sneed. Emily Opilo, Baltimore Sun, 9 May 2024 Legally and technologically, the company that has easily beat back challengers since its founding in 1998, faces perhaps its biggest threat yet. Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 May 2024 Now, Bloomberg Green has learned, a coalition of gas companies and their supporters are planning to wield the restaurants’ legal victory to beat back similar rules across the western US. Bloomberg, The Mercury News, 13 May 2024 Later that year, the governor would handily beat back a recall effort. Vik Jolly, Sacramento Bee, 8 May 2024 But Democrats say the move is more about beating back the far right than saving Johnson. Caitlin Yilek, CBS News, 7 May 2024 World & Nation How Taiwan beat back disinformation and preserved the integrity of its election Jan. 27, 2024 At least one journalist has been indicted on defamation charges for a story about the justice minister that turned out to have major inaccuracies. Max Kim, Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2024 In a setback to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, the mayor of Istanbul is headed for re-election, beating back a broad campaign by the president and his government. Ben Hubbard, New York Times, 1 Apr. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'beat back.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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Cite this Entry

“Beat back.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beat%20back. Accessed 4 Jun. 2024.

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