adjacent or contiguous but oppositely oriented; having the backs close together or adjoining.
The seats in the day coach are back to back.
Stud Poker. (of a pair) consisting of the hole card and the first upcard.
He had aces back to back.
facing in opposite directions, often with the backs touching
(of urban houses) built so that their backs are joined or separated only by a narrow alley
informal consecutive
commerce
denoting a credit arrangement in which a finance house acts as an intermediary to conceal the identity of the seller from the buyer
denoting a loan from one company to another in a different country using a finance house to provide the loan but not the funding
With backs close together or touching, as in In the first and second rows of the bus, the seats were back to back, an unusual arrangement . This term also can be applied to persons who stand facing in opposite directions and with their backs touching. [Mid-1800s]
Consecutively, one after another, as in I'm exhausted; I had three meetings back to back . [Mid-1900s]
First recorded in 1450–1500
Back-to-back things come right after each other. Two back-to-back baseball games are played in a row. Back-to-back has been used to describe houses that are literally back-to-back with no separation. These days, back-to-back events happen consecutively. A baseball player with back-to-back home runs hit two in a row. A President with back-to-back victories won two elections in a row. There's no separation between back-to-back things, like how if your back was pressed against someone else’s back, nothing could fit in between. Sometimes people use the term back-to-back-to-back for things that happen three times in a row.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Play it back to back and actually start understanding the sound more and realize there’s new sounds being created,” said lead vocalist Geovanni Flores.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
“You have to understand camera composition, which shots are changed. Like you can’t have two close-ups back to back, you have to start with an establishing shot,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
Try doing it for six shows back to back.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026
He has only played 10 first-class matches, of which three were at the start of this season – three back to back for the first time in his career.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
As he scrubbed his hands clean, the thunder hit two more times, back to back, like the sky was literally cracking open.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
The S&P and Nasdaq suffered their first back-to-back weekly losses since March.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
“We did something that hasn’t been done in over 30 years, going back-to-back World Series champions, and we are going for a three-peat,” Roberts said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
“Winning back-to-back championships is an extraordinary accomplishment, and it reflects the talent, determination and character of everyone in the organization,” Walter said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the only franchise that spends in the same stratosphere as the Mets these days, but they have back-to-back titles to show for it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
The government poured money into Turner Station, which began filling with one- and two-story housing projects, many of them pressed side by side and back-to-back, some with four to five hundred units.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
