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Glite Dictionary
🔄 To return ↩️ To revisit 💬 To respond quickly ⚽ To catch up
to come back

to come back

18 3.2
To make the score equal after being behind in a game
  • phrasal verb
  • /kʌm bæk/
  • Informal
translation icon : remontar
  • We got the go-ahead run in the fifth, but the Braves came right back with two more in their half.
  • come back to win
  • come back to beat
  • come back to defeat

And obviously this year was incredible with Tiger coming back to win it all.

Examples

  • You know what it feels like to lose, but then you came back the next year and you didn't let it define you, and you won.

  • I know no World Series team has ever come back from 3-0 down to win four straight.

    Bad Lieutenant (1992)

  • Very quickly the allies have come back with a goal.

    Escape to Victory (1981)

  • Once again, no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to come back and win a series.

    Bad Lieutenant (1992)

  • Clippers, we were down 20, and we came back and made it a game.

    Blog text (18)

  • "Some of our guys got down 0-2, and they came back and took their walks," Girardi said.

    Blog text (17)

  • Burns trailed early in the second game and came back to tie the score at 13-13.

    Blog text (17)

  • New York Mets trying to do something that no other team has ever done, come back from a three-nothing deficit in a best of seven series.

    Bad Lieutenant (1992)

  • The Mets have won the championship, and the Mets are the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff or a World Series.

    Bad Lieutenant (1992)

  • In the final minutes of the game, the team managed to come back from a 10-point deficit to win.

Synonyms

to bounce back
vsto come back
60 3.5

Get better quickly after an illness, problem, or setback

describes making up a deficit in points or goals in a sports contest

Antonyms

to fall behind
70 2.8

To not keep up with others or a schedule

How Recovered

to win
∞ 1.0
to overtake
45 3.3
to come back
  • Informal
18 3.2

Surface Forms

come back infinitive
came back past
come back past participle
coming back present participle
comes back third person singular

Morphology

come + back

The meaning 'to reach an equal score after being behind' is a straightforward metaphorical extension of 'come' (to move/arrive) + 'back' (to a previous position): learners who know both constituents can infer a return or recovery to a prior state. This motion verb + particle composition is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English patterns, so a B1 learner will likely understand this sports sense from the parts.

Etymology

Come back in sport paints a picture of a team moving forward again to reach the same score, with the parts come and back showing a return to level ground. So it means 'to reach an equal score after being behind'.