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Glite Dictionary
🏊 A swimming stroke 🏊 To swim on back
to backstroke

to backstroke

1 3.6
To swim on the back with the arms moving in circles and the legs kicking quickly
  • verb
  • /ˈbækˌstroʊk/
translation icon : nadar de espaldas
  • If you don't want to backstroke home, you get down here!

Examples

  • You're calmly backstroking along in the big toilet bowl, and somehow, you never let it touch you.

    Strange Days (1995)

  • You can backstroke in a vat of dragon piss... for all I care about it, ma'am.

    Miracle Mile (1989)

  • Learn free and backstroke well first.

    Blog text (13)

  • And once your legs are free, simply backstroke out of the quicksand.

    Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

  • Backstroke!

    Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling (2009)

  • Backstroke.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • She was like Michael Phelps swimming out there, backstroking and whatnot.

    Old (2021)

  • Purple blossoms floated past, tickling his hair, grazing his shoulders as he backstroked slowly through the warm water.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • She decided to backstroke across the pool to cool off on a hot day.

  • After practicing for weeks, he can now backstroke gracefully in the deep end.

Surface Forms

backstroke infinitive
backstroked past
backstroked past participle
backstroking present participle
backstrokes third person singular

Etymology

Backstroke as a verb comes from the name of the stroke: it means 'to swim on your back' using the same arm and leg movements, so to backstroke is simply to do that swimming movement.