kickback
[kik-bak]
- a percentage of income given to a person in a position of power or influence as payment for having made the income possible: usually considered improper or unethical.
- a rebate, usually given secretively by a seller to a buyer or to one who influenced the buyer.
- the practice of an employer or a person in a supervisory position of taking back a portion of the wages due workers.
- a response, usually vigorous.
- a sudden, uncontrolled movement of a machine, tool, or other device, as on starting or in striking an obstruction: A kickback from a chain saw can be dangerous.
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Origin of kickback
1930–35, Americanism; noun use of verb phrase kick back
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for kickback
Contemporary Examples
Another Russian word the actor might learn, the commenters proposed, was raspilit, or "kickback."
Then Mubarak and his family and their allies would see benefits in return, presumably some kickback or a share of the profits.
My question to the government is this: What constitutes a modern-day bribe or kickback?
Is a perpetrator off the hook because he or she uses the market to pay the kickback?
Meanwhile, he earned the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" for the kickback he purportedly took on government contracts.
Historical Examples
The "kickback" would have certainly killed or wounded us both.
The Red WatchJ. A. Currie
The nerves of Average Jones gave a sharp "kickback," like a mis-cranked motor-car.
Average JonesSamuel Hopkins Adams
I want to set down what happened in case there's ever a kickback although I don't think there ever will be.
The Beasts in the VoidPaul W. Fairman
kickback
- a strong reaction
- part of an income paid to a person having influence over the size or payment of the income, esp by some illegal arrangement
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- (intr) to have a strong reaction
- (intr) (esp of a gun) to recoil
- to pay a kickback to (someone)
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for kickback
n.
also kick-back, c.1900 in various mechanical senses, from kick (v.) + back (adv.). By 1926 in a slang sense of "be forced to return pelf, pay back to victims," which was extended to illegal partial give-backs of government-set wages that were extorted from workers by employers. Hence sense of "illegal or improper payment" (1932).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper