Backstroke

//ˈbækˌstɹoʊk// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A backhanded stroke or blow.

    "He observed that Cid Ruy-dias was an excellent knight; but not equal to the Lord of the Flaming-sword, who with one back-stroke [translating revés] had cut two fierce and monstrous giants through the middle."

  2. 2
    a swimming stroke that resembles the crawl except the swimmer lies on his or her back wordnet
  3. 3
    A stroke swum lying on one's back, while rotating both arms through the water as to propel the swimmer backwards.
  4. 4
    The pull on the tail of the rope that swings the bell through a full circle (compare handstroke)
Verb
  1. 1
    To swim the backstroke.
  2. 2
    swim on one's back wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aquaplaningaquaticsaustralian crawlback crawlback crawlbackhand

Example

More examples

"No matter how hard I practiced, I wasn't able to do the backstroke."

Etymology

From back + stroke.

Related phrases

front crawl

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.