Climbdown

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A retreat or withdrawal from an earlier position or opinion; a backdown. figuratively

    "Thursday's court appearance as he waited for his case to be heard was a humiliating climbdown for the flamboyant Texan, who sports the clipped mustache and Saville Row style of English aristocracy."

Example

More examples

"Saying she was wrong was a difficult climbdown for Alex."

Etymology

From climb + down.

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