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
"There's some moments where you sit back and you just go, this is amazing," said Mosca after scoring an accomplished 43.
From Barron's • Feb. 17, 2026
Whatever Khrushchev was up to, was President Kennedy going to sit back and let it happen?
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
