back to the drawing board

Cultural  

1. A saying indicating that one's effort has failed, and one must start all over again: “The new package we designed hasn't increased our sales as we'd hoped, so it's back to the drawing board.”

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back to the drawing board Idioms  

1. Also, back to square one. Back to the beginning because the current attempt was unsuccessful, as in When the town refused to fund our music program, we had to go back to the drawing board, or I've assembled this wrong side up, so it's back to square one. The first term originated during World War II, most likely from the caption of a cartoon by Peter Arno in The New Yorker magazine. It pictured a man who held a set of blueprints and was watching an airplane explode. The variant is thought to come from a board game or street game where an unlucky throw of dice or a marker sends the player back to the beginning of the course. It was popularized by British sports-casters in the 1930s, when the printed radio program included a grid with numbered squares to help listeners follow the description of a soccer game.

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Example Sentences

Finally, the federation was forced to run a curtailed version without any commercial partners and has now gone back to the drawing board for the next season.

From BBC • Jun. 16, 2026

The implication of the research is this: If you’re planning to retire at 65 or 67, it may be time to go back to the drawing board and stress test your plan.

From MarketWatch • May 14, 2026

That version of the film was well underway when the production was forced to go back to the drawing board due to a legal issue.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 24, 2026

Carbon taxes will almost certainly come back to the drawing board if only for fiscal reasons.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 16, 2026

The Plumbers went back to the drawing board.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin