callback
or call-back
an act of calling back.
a summoning of workers back to work after a layoff.
a summoning of an employee back to work after working hours, as for emergency business.
a request to a performer who has auditioned for a role, booking, or the like to return for another audition.
a return telephone call.
an allusion to a joke made earlier in the same comedy act or show:The kitten yelling “Quiet!” at the end was a callback to earlier in the episode when the two normally silent brothers shouted it.
of or relating to a return telephone call: Please leave a callback number.
Origin of callback
1Words Nearby callback
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use callback in a sentence
Reitman’s promise to return this franchise “back” to fans validated the notion that Feig’s film—which included numerous callbacks to and cameos that tethered it to the original—was made for someone else.
The Sexist Trolling That Led to a New, Underwhelming ‘Ghostbusters’ | Laura Bradley | November 19, 2021 | The Daily BeastThe book builds heavily on Psychopomp and Soft Sounds’ themes of loss, and it’s sprinkled with discreet callbacks to Zauner’s own songs.
They called me the next year, and they were like, you can just go straight to callbacks.
A couple of them having callbacks and one of the final calls with Triple H in there, who is, he’s an incredibly huge WWE superstar for years, for 25 years and head of NXT.
In these moments, the book feels like a callback to writers like Henry David Thoreau, who idealized nature while being unwilling to think critically about the “unnatural”—politics, capitalism, other people.
What Gretel Ehrlich Gets Wrong About Climate Change | Erin Berger | February 8, 2021 | Outside Online
Having a criminal record can reduce the likelihood of getting a callback or job offer by 50 percent.
His First Day Out Of Jail After 40 Years: Adjusting To Life Outside | Justin Rohrlich | January 3, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTThe callback sketch that got the night's biggest response though was the return of the Kissing Family.
Zamata was one of at least three women to get a callback later in the month.
Finally! ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hires Sasheer Zamata, First Black Female Cast Member in 5 Years | Kevin Fallon | January 6, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTMegan lands a callback for a role in a play in Boston, which leads to yet another row between the two.
In the callback audition I tried getting her to throw this water bottle at our casting director, and she said, ‘I won’t do that.
‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’: One of the Year’s Best Films | Marlow Stern | June 18, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST
Other Idioms and Phrases with callback
Ask someone to return; also, ask that something be returned, as in He passed the first audition and was waiting to be called back, or These screws are defective; the manufacturer has called them back. [Late 1500s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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