sit back
Britishverb
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Relax, as in Now that the work's finished, we can just sit back .
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Refrain from interfering or taking part, as in Mom and Dad just sat back and watched Meg try to decide whether or not she should tell on her friends . [Mid-1900s] Also see sit by .
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.
“I feel like we’ve always been so in the moment of creating and evolving and doing our work, it seems strange to sit back and do a sort of retrospective.”
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 2026
Agentic commerce is in its early days, but Vemana said he would rather be early and learn than sit back and wait for it to become more mainstream.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 16, 2026
“Don’t sit back and say, ‘I’ll do what I was doing before,’” Smith says.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 2, 2026
"Sometimes we sit back, we're on our heels. We're not leaning in," he said.
From Barron's • Feb. 25, 2026
“If you two get involved, you have to sit back and listen. You have to make sure not to make it about you.”
From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro
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.
