backward and forward

1. Also, backwards and forwards.

2. Same as back and forth .

3. Thoroughly, completely, as in He read the speech over and over, until he knew it backwards and forwards . [Late 1500s]

Example Sentences

In the book he emphasizes that the readiness is all, learning his lines backward and forward before the first rehearsal.

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Every renaissance is Janus-faced, he notes, looking “backward and forward at the same time.”

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Didion’s grief ripples backward and forward as she struggles to make sense of time.

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So in 1991, he had an idea when David Rensin and Bill Zehme published the “The Bob Book,” which Pool described as a paperback that aimed to explore the “name Bob backward and forward.”

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He flexed his arms, bent backward and forward, and felt foolish before his wife.

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