look back
Britishverb
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to cast one's mind to the past
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to become increasingly successful
after his book was published, he never looked back
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to pay another visit later
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Remember or think about the past, as in When Mom looked back on the early days of their marriage, she wondered how they'd managed with so little money . [Late 1500s]
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not look back ; never look back . Never show signs of interrupted progress, never return to past circumstances. For example, Once he'd won the Pulitzer Prize, he never looked back . [Late 1800s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Low thinks the book is unlikely to change many opinions, as "people have settled into their camps about how they regard Charles, how they look back on the Diana years".
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
It is easy to look back and see that stocks of the highest dividend compounders have tended to perform well.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026
“I look back on that now. I was 18 years old and I was like, “What?’
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
We’re bound to look back on this period as the beginning of AGI.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
As we look back at the past, we must take these hard, cold facts into account.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
