put back

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put back (third-person singular simple present puts back, present participle putting back, simple past and past participle put back)

1. (transitive) To return something to its original place.

   He carefully put the vase back on the shelf.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.

   • 2024 May 1, Tom Ingall, “Hope springs eternal for better services”, in RAIL, number 1008, page 52:

     The scope of the new upgrade isn't just restricted to the station and junction. It has involved more than simply putting back what was unwisely taken away.

2. (intransitive, nautical) To turn back; to return.
   • 1813, Robert Southey, The Life of Horatio, Lord Viscount Nelson:

     The French […] had put back to Toulon.

3. (transitive) To postpone an arranged event or appointment.

   The meeting has been put back to 5.00 pm.

4. (transitive, idiomatic) To drink fast; to knock down alcohol.

   You'll need to put that drink back quickly; it's very nearly closing time.

   • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 13:

     Whisky he sipped at suspiciously, and still had not got an adult taste for; but wine he loved, and he put back champagne as if it were lager, with awful belches and chuckles after each glass.

5. (transitive, idiomatic) To change the time in a time zone to an earlier time.

   Don't forget that this Sunday we put the clocks back an hour.

   • 1951 June, “The Why and the Wherefore: Railways and Summer Time”, in Railway Magazine, page 429:

     When the clocks are put forward at the introduction of summer time, the long-distance night trains automatically become one hour late, and continue to run late for the remainder of their journeys. […] Similarly, when the clocks are put back in the autumn, the night trains become one hour early.

• The object in all senses can come before or after the particle. If it is a pronoun, then it must come before the particle.