Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

back to the drawing board

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.48 in modern English

Syllables: back- -to the -draw-ing board
IPA

40

Scrabble Score

21

Letters

5

Syllables

14

Unique Chars

Meaning

adv

Indicates that one must try a different strategy in order to achieve some goal following the failure of a recent attempt.

Example Sentences

"Well, that didn't work at all, so it's back to the drawing board, I guess."
"For such cases the only thing is to go back to the drawing board and do it better; and it is here that the highest qualities of vision and human leadership are needed."
"If we head for lay up tomorrow, those plans are right down the toilet and it's back to the drawing board."
"Poverty is created by institutions, concepts, and policies. We need to go back to the drawing board to redesign these and remove the barriers."
"Big business wants the main parties to go back to the drawing board on climate policy after the election to try to come up with an agreed plan for an economically efficient way to reduce Australia's emissions and offer investment certainty."
"“It’s become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can’t function as we wanted. So we’re ending the council and going back to the drawing board,” a Google spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement on Thursday."

Etymology

Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board,” as the caption of a cartoon by Peter Arno of The New Yorker on March 1, 1941, depicting a delighted engineer walking away from a crashed plane.

Inflected Forms

back to the old drawing board (alternative)

Phrases

square one back to square one

Frequently Paired Words

square one back to square one

Questions

What does back to the drawing board mean?: Indicates that one must try a different strategy in order to achieve some goal following the failure of a recent attempt.
Where does back to the drawing board come from?: Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board,” as the caption of a cartoon by Peter Arno of The New Yorker on March 1, 1941, depicting a delighted engineer walking away from a crashed plane.

How to pronounce back to the drawing board

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