backseat driver
1
4.4
- noun
- /ˈbækˌsiːt ˈdraɪvər/
- Offensive
:
sabelotodo
- Everyone gets annoyed at a backseat driver who constantly tells the driver what to do.
My pet peeve of the week goes to backseat drivers.
- My pet peeve of the week goes to backseat drivers.
Examples
-
To play "backseat driver" here, I would have taken Diplomatic Security agents from locations that do allow contractors and moved them to Libya; then, I would have backfilled those with contractors.
Blog text (9) -
Now I have to share my last moments with a constantly chattering backseat driver.
-
Yeah, but I am a backseat driver too.
-
And allow me to jump into the backseat driver seat for a moment.
Blog text (28) -
Damn backseat driver.
-
I'm stopping, backseat driver.
-
But from the number of vehicles parked outside the press club, she was one of only a handful of people in official Washington who had been able to resist the temptation to play backseat driver.
Fiction book (1996) -
She was a quicker shopper than the Cartwrights but a much worse backseat driver.
Fiction book (1998) -
I find it frustrating when my friend acts like a backseat driver during my road trips.
-
When she started giving me directions, I felt like I had a backseat driver in the car.
How Controlling
- Offensive
35
5.8
2
6.8
- Offensive
1
4.4
- US
271
2.8
- Literature
217
3.5
305
2.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'backseat' denotes a passenger/secondary position and 'driver' denotes the person who controls the vehicle, so a B1 learner can infer a person in the back who behaves like a driver by giving unwanted instructions. This pragmatic inference (someone in a secondary role trying to control) is common and cross-linguistically plausible, making the expression immediately understandable from its parts.
Etymology
The noun backseat driver comes from the simple image of someone in the car's back seat telling the driver what to do. That's why it means 'someone who gives unwanted advice or tries to control things they are not in charge of'.