there and back
10
2.2
- idiom
- I have to figure out how to get him there and back.
- get there and back
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Watch on YouTubeI think he maybe swam somewhere to the Bahamas, some insane route that he'd done, and he had to go there and back.
- I think he maybe swam somewhere to the Bahamas, some insane route that he'd done, and he had to go there and back.
- Three hills there and back six times we're going uphill.
- And that becomes your marathon there and back.
- That's you know what have I got here six weeks, six weeks to get there and back from the my from my front room and back in computer time.
Examples
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You got enough gas to get there and back to the airport?
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It takes about 35 minutes to go there and back.
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And how are you getting there and back?
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You think we can make it there and back in, uh, five hours?
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We'll be there and back within an hour.
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It's nine hundred dollars for everything, to fly her there and back.
Fiction book (2000) -
We can get there and back in no time.
Academic text (1990) -
Racing starts at midday, we can be there and back before she blinks.
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If you don't mind the early wake-up, you could go there and back in a day from most points in Arkansas.
Blog text (9) -
We'll be back home in just a few hours; that's the plan: to go there and back before dinner.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A journey to a place and back for work or fun
46
1.6
A journey to a place and back to where you started
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to a destination and back again' is directly and compositionally built from 'there' (to that place) + 'and' (joining) + 'back' (return), so a learner who knows the words can infer the round-trip sense. This coordinate motion pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows ordinary English composition, making it immediately understandable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
There and back comes from simple travel talk: imagine going there to a friend's house and then coming back the same way. So it means 'to a destination and back again'.