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

Facing new rules governing both the cars’ power units and their aerodynamics, teams had effectively been sent back to the drawing board.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 28, 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

England, for all the improvements they have made, were sent rocketing back to the drawing board.

From BBC • Feb. 14, 2026

Lewis and other Republican leaders went back to the drawing board.

From Salon • Dec. 24, 2025

The Plumbers went back to the drawing board.

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