back-to-back

Pluralback-to-backs

1. 1
   one after anotheradjective

   Coming one right after another, with no interval in between; consecutive.

   The band performed three back-to-back shows over the weekend.

   He won back-to-back championships in consecutive years.

   Similarconsecutive, successive, straight

   Note

   At home in sports reporting, where it counts things that fall in an unbroken run: Ruth and Gehrig's back-to-back home runs, Birmingham's back-to-back Premier League wins. It sits before a plural noun and takes no degrees. Events are back-to-back or they are not, never more back-to-back. After a verb, the same idea passes to the adverb: the two films ran back-to-back.

2. 2
   body positionadjective

   Positioned so that one person's back faces another person's back.

   The soldiers fought back-to-back, covering each other's blind spots.

   The portrait showed the twins seated back-to-back on a low bench.

   Oppositeface-to-face

3. 3
   one after anotheradverb

   Alternative form of back to back.

   The committee met back-to-back through the afternoon without a break.

   The two films screened back-to-back at the festival.

   Note

   Here the open adverb back to back is spelled with hyphens. It carries both of its meanings: consecutively, like the "consecutive" adjective, and with backs facing. A ScotRail driver's friend who overshot two stations back-to-back shows the first. It follows the verb and says how events or people are arranged. Whether to hyphenate it is a matter of style, since the open form is the main spelling.

4. 4
   adjective

   Built with a party wall at the rear, sharing that wall with the house directly behind.

   The back-to-back terraces of the industrial north housed thousands of families.

   Restoration of these back-to-back cottages preserved their original brickwork.

   Note

   A housing sense, said only of houses and used before the noun: a row of back-to-back houses, back-to-back terraces. Because the rear wall is shared, each home has a neighbor directly behind it, and the two dwellings stand like people placed back to back. Drop the noun and you have the house itself: a back-to-back.

5. 5
   one such housenouncountable

   A house whose rear wall is a party wall shared with the dwelling immediately behind it.

   The museum preserved a restored back-to-back as it would have looked in 1870.

   These cramped back-to-backs once filled the streets around the factories.

   Note

   The noun is countable, and its plural is marked at the end of the whole phrase: back-to-backs, never backs-to-backs. It is the adjective with its noun absorbed, because a back-to-back is a back-to-back house. So a row of back-to-backs and a row of back-to-back houses name the same street.

6. 6
   opposite directionsadjective

   Emerging or moving in exactly opposite directions from a common origin.

   When the particle decayed, the two photons flew off back-to-back.

   The detector recorded back-to-back jets produced in the collision.

   Note

   Momentum conservation is what makes this geometry common in particle physics. When a system starts with no net momentum, its two decay or collision products must fly apart along one line. The description depends on the frame: a pair that is back-to-back in its rest frame is no longer so in the laboratory frame. Physicists keep the hyphens in every position (back-to-back jets; produced back-to-back), extending the image of people standing back to back.

7. 7
   pokeradjectiveslang

   In seven-card stud poker, describing a pair formed by a player's first two cards, one dealt face up and one face down.

   He played aggressively after catching back-to-back queens in the hole.

   Back-to-back tens early on can be tricky to play in stud.

   Similarwired

   Note

   Poker slang for a stud pair split between hidden and showing cards, and an exact synonym of wired. As slang, it belongs to table talk and poker writing rather than formal rules. It describes the cards themselves, as in back-to-back queens, and not the player. Because one card lies face down, opponents see only half of the pair.

8. 8
   rig workernouncountable

   On an oil rig, one of two workers who share a single position, each taking over the role while the other is off rotation.

   She trusted her back-to-back to handle any problems during her weeks ashore.

   When one driller quit, his back-to-back covered both rotations until a replacement arrived.

   Note

   Rig workers' jargon, and it usually comes with a possessive: talk to his back-to-back on the rig. Paul Carter's Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs (2005) stops to explain it as the man on the rig who does your job when you're not there. The aside suggests the word needs glossing for outsiders. The pairing is one-to-one: your back-to-back holds your own position, not just any colleague's.

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