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to buy back

to buy back

22 3.4
To pay money to get something you once sold, lost, or gave away
  • phrasal verb
  • /baɪ bæk/
translation icon : recomprar
  • After selling his old guitar, he decided to buy back the one he had regretted letting go.

That's a simple explanation of how easy buying back your stock is.

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Examples

  • Instead of paying dividends, I should just buy back shares and then the shareholders would have a better tax.

  • On top of collecting his insurance, maybe he wants to buy back his bonds.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • The bank did keep its book running position, but it had to buy back the shares it sold at their own loss.

  • So they were, they were buying back their stocks with the stock price higher.

  • So Facebook will effectively be using $1.9 billion of cash to buy back its own stock.

    Blog text (9)
  • And we could buy back old bonds at a discount.

  • Last time you worked the lens, it cost my Daddy half a mill to buy back the video.

  • Typically, sellers have 90 days to fix such problems or buy back the loan.

    Blog text (21)
  • We also bought back from our lenders the property, a couple of properties that we were going to convert but didn't.

  • He's gonna buy back the shares that Granddad sold off.

Synonyms

to reacquire
vsto buy back
5 5.5

To get something back after you lose or give it up

requires purchasing the item again rather than recovering it by other means
to repurchase
vsto buy back
3 5.3

To buy back something you sold before

is the informal phrasal expression rather than a single formal word
to rebuy
vsto buy back
4.3

To buy something again that you no longer have

is the phrasal everyday form not the shorter single-word form

Antonyms

57 3.5

To quickly get rid of things by offering them at low prices

How Restored

to buy back
22 3.4
to reacquire
5 5.5
to retrieve
226 3.7
to find
1.0

Surface Forms

buy back infinitive
buying back present participle
buys back third person singular
bought back past participle

Morphology

buy + back

The meaning 'to purchase again' is directly derivable from 'buy' (to purchase) combined with 'back' functioning as a particle meaning 'again' or 'to a previous state/owner', so the compound reads as 'buy again'. This is a straightforward compositional verb+particle pattern common in English and other languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Buy back shows a simple picture: you buy, meaning you pay money for, something and get it back from the person who has it. So it means 'to buy something again after you sold, lost, or gave it away'.