back-and-forth

[ bak-uhn-fawrth, -fohrth, -uhnd- ]

adjective

1. backward and forward; side to side; to and fro:

   a back-and-forth shuttling of buses to the stadium; the back-and-forth movement of a clock's pendulum.

noun

1. unresolved argument or discussion.

Word History and Origins

Origin of back-and-forth¹

First recorded in 1605–15

Idioms and Phrases

Also, backward(s) and forward(s) . To and fro, moving in one direction and then the opposite and so making no progress in either. For example, The clock pendulum swung back and forth . The term is also used figuratively, as in The lawyers argued the point backwards and forwards for an entire week . [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

Thus began a flurry of back-and-forth emails between director and subject.

From The Daily Beast

“I take like three, three-and-a-half hours out of the day just to commute back-and-forth,” he said.

From The Daily Beast

The two had a heated back-and-forth that was barely audible while the camera was still running.

From The Daily Beast

I went everywhere he was, and I was just off-camera talking to him so we could riff stuff back-and-forth.

From The Daily Beast

The image cuts back-and-forth between Kardashian voguing, and West giving his best “Blue Steel” to the camera.

From The Daily Beast

There would be none of this shilly-shallying back-and-forth work then!

From Project Gutenberg

She just seesawed her car with three rapid back-and-forth jerks that sent showers of stones from her spinning wheels.

From Project Gutenberg

There was a lot of back-and-forth yelling to make sure that everybody was out from in front, and then the blowers started.

From Project Gutenberg

It was one of the jerky, bob-back-and-forth kind that pitches you off the seat every five minutes.

From Project Gutenberg