force someone's back to the wall
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.20 in modern English
47
Scrabble Score
26
Letters
5
Syllables
15
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "You are forcing our backs to the wall, Mr. President. The time is not far off when, living for God’s reign on earth, we shall have to stand against you."
- "He didn’t want to do it this way, but she’d forced his back to the wall."
- "It was unlikely that “the masses” would respond to this, unless rising prices forced their backs to the wall – or unless they were incited!"
- "We did not do that because the opposition was forcing our backs to the wall. We did that because we want to govern well."
- "There are those who believe that the truth about the humanity emerges only when you subject people to extreme pressure. Force their backs to the wall, confront them (for example) in some room full of light with what terrifies them most in the world, and they will reveal themselves for what they are. But this is palpably untrue."
Inflected Forms
forces someone's back to the wall (present, singular)
forcing someone's back to the wall (participle, present)
forced someone's back to the wall (participle, past)
forced someone's back to the wall (past)