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.
It is possible that a future historian will look back on this moment as a time of popular constitutionalism.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
Like I said, it’s OK to look back and wish you had done some things differently, but fixating on the past isn’t always helpful.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
One cannot examine the past without acknowledging that we look back from the perspective of where we stand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Striker Wilson Isidor's journey ended at the group stage with Haiti but he will always have that stunning goal against Morocco to look back on.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
I take out my phone and look back at the text Brie sent me last week to make sure I didn’t miss something, but it’s exactly how I remembered it.
From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison
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.
