backsie

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From back +‎ -sie.

Pronunciation

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Noun

backsie (plural backsies)

  1. (childish) The back.
    • 1985, Dorothy Einon, Play with a purpose:
      A mimsy, a clapsy, I roll my hands, touch backsie, My right hand, my left hand, High as the sky, low as the sea, I touch my knee, and my heel, and my toe, And over we go.
  2. (childish, often in the plural) The act of taking back or going back on a statement, promise, or agreement.
    Synonym: takesies-backsies
    • 1986, Alice Bach, The Meat in the Sandwich, page 136:
      No backsie no matter what.
    • 1987, Carolyn W. Field, Jaqueline Shachter Weiss, Values in selected children's books of fiction and fantasy:
      Frances is the loser when she agrees to no "backsies" or refunds as she buys Thelma's plastic tea dishes with money saved for a china set.
    • 1999, Mary Bolte, A Guide for Using Bedtime for Frances in the Classroom, page 48:
      Talk about times when you had a backsie or gave something back to someone.
    • 2008 March 25, Harvey Araton, “For President, Knicks Could Look Nearby”, in The New York Times‎[1], archived from the original on 26 November 2022:
      Not one to gloat, Thorn did sound amused Monday when asked if he had broken the news to the Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban: no backsies.
    • 2011, Jenna Katerin Moran, Nobilis: The Essentials, Volume 1, page 11:
      Then you will be in trouble because it will kill you to have it taken out again but it will betray your deepest inner truth to tell them No Backsies.
    • 2012, Kate Hoffmann, The Mighty Quinns: Ronan: The Mighty Quinns: Marcus, page 83:
      Whenever one of us would say something nasty, she'd ask if we wanted a backsie, which meant we could take it back before anyone heard it.
    • 2013 May 6, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Monday, May 6, 2013:
      "Hm. I guess I did agree to go along with whatever her conditions were..." "We smooched on it. No backsies."
    • 2015, Susan Morris Shaffer, Linda Perlman Gordon, How to Connect with Your iTeen: A Parenting Road Map, page 226:
      Remind them that there are no "backsies" online—what is posted can't be taken back.
    • 2018 April 8, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., “SNL pokes at Mark Zuckerberg and the sheer creepiness of the Cambridge Analytica breach”, in The Washington Post‎[2], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 April 2018:
      When Weekend Update host Colin Jost asked whether users would be able to regain ownership of their personal information, “Zuckerberg” responded, “Psh, no. Because it’s mine. You gave it to me. No backsies. And if you don’t like it, you can Zuck it.”
  3. (childish, often in the plural) A reciprocal action or consequence, such as immediately tagging the player who has tagged one in a game of tag.
  4. (jacks, often in the plural) The act of going through a sequence of moves in reverse.
    • 1956, Patricia Evans, Jacks, page 9:
      And then you play Backsies again if you're playing that way.
    • 1961, Patricia Evans, Rimbles: A Book of Children's Classic Games, Rhymes, Songs, and Sayings:
      In the eastern part of this country BACKSIES is played by some people after each game, and you're not through with a game until you've played it.
    • 1970, Marta Weigle, Follow my fancy: the book of jacks and jack games, page 12:
      When a player gets through sixies, he then starts on a backsie of the regular game.
  5. (childish, often in the plural) The act of joining a queue behind a friend rather than at the end of the queue.
    Coordinate term: frontsie
    • 1988, William L. Rivers, Cleve Mathews, Ethics for the media, page 45:
      To her, the ethical thicket consists of "frontsies and backsies," a phenomenon she noticed in kindergarten.
    • 2003, Ann M. Martin, The Baby-sitter's Club, page 200:
      One of his favorites is "No frontsies, no backsies," so there was really no point in trying to butt in.
    • 2019, Robert K. Bolger, Robert C. Coburn, Religious Language, Meaning, and Use: The God Who is Not There:
      Backsies meant you let a kid cut behind you. A complex moral microcosm presented itself in the world of frontsies and backsies, with a wide range of available moral responses.

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