aback

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English abak, also abac,^[2][3] inherited from Old English on bæc (“at or toward the back, backward”),^[4][2][5][6] formed from on (“on, at, towards”) and bæc (“back”).^[7][5][8] The unstressed first element was reduced to a-, as in about,^[5][4] and the word was often written separately up to the 17th century.^[5] The nautical use made it a single word,^[9] and outside nautical language it has mostly been replaced by back.^[10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Backward, to the rear: in the Old English West Saxon Gospels (Matthew 4:10),^[5][10] where Christ says to the devil Gang thu sceocca on bæc.^[10] Barnhart dates the Old English phrase to the 11th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Old English and Middle English adverb meant "backward" or "behind",^[5][2] and Chaucer and Gower used it in the sense "backward".^[11] In the 17th century it was applied to a ship's sails pressed back against the mast by a head wind (1661),^[5][6] and a vessel caught in this way by a sudden change of wind or careless steering was said to be taken aback (1754).^[4][12][10] The phrase was then used of people suddenly checked or surprised: Etymonline finds this by 1792,^[4] Barnhart only in 1840, in Hood's Up the Rhine,^[3] and Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) calls it a colloquialism.^[12] In Scotland and northern England aback still means "behind" (aback o' the hoose);^[13][5] since 1768 it has also meant "ago".^[5]

Timeline

• Old English – backward, to the rear (on bæc).^[5]
• Old English – in the rear, behind.^[5]
• c. 1175 – Middle English o bacch, backward, in the Ormulum.^[2]
• before 1200 – the form abac, in Laȝamon's Brut.^[3][2]
• 1661 – of sails, pressed back against the mast by the wind.^[5]
• 1743 – aback of, behind.^[5]
• 1754 – taken aback, of a ship caught by a sudden head wind.^[4]
• 1768 – ago, in the past (Scottish and regional).^[5]
• 1792 – taken aback of people, suddenly checked or surprised.^[4] Barnhart dates this sense to 1840.^[3]

Meanings

Adverb

1. taken aback: surprised or disconcerted, suddenly checked: She was taken aback by the size of the bill.^[14][15][7]
2. (nautical) Of a sail, with the wind pressing on its forward side, so that the ship is stopped or driven backward.^{[14][15][7][5]}
3. (archaic) Backward; toward the rear.^[14][7][5]
4. (archaic) In the rear; behind.^[7][5]
5. (regional) aback of: behind, at the back of.^[5][13]

Related words

• back

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b Smyth, W. H. (1867), The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, London: Blackie and Son
13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins