How to Use backslide in a Sentence

backslide

verb
  • Smokers who quit often backslide within a year.
  • McAvoy, backsliding to cut off the middle, lost his grip on the ice and knocked Swayman out of the way of the puck.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Apr. 2023
  • Some have also been on hand as the program has backslid since.
    Zach Osterman, Indianapolis Star, 1 Feb. 2018
  • The temptation to backslide can be strong — and must be guarded against.
    Pratap Khedkar, STAT, 28 July 2022
  • Woods sent himself backsliding in the first five holes of his second round.
    Tim Layden, SI.com, 6 Apr. 2018
  • In each of the last three years, the population would have to exceed the average to ensure the species doesn’t backslide.
    Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2018
  • Over the next few years, Fishback would sometimes seem to improve, only to backslide.
    C.j. Chivers, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2023
  • But there's no reason to expect them to backslide out of the playoffs entirely.
    Jace Evans, USA TODAY, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Change is never easy, but legacy Fitbit users have been through enough this year, and Google can’t afford to backslide here.
    Antonio G. Di Benedetto, The Verge, 4 Dec. 2023
  • Change is never easy, but legacy Fitbit users have been through enough this year, and Google can’t afford to backslide here.
    Brandon Widder, The Verge, 16 Dec. 2023
  • But others have either stayed the same or, in the cases of James Johnson and Hassan Whiteside, backslid a little.
    Dave Hyde, Sun-Sentinel.com, 13 Apr. 2018
  • There were fears that Texas could backslide, particularly as new variants of the virus emerge.
    New York Times, 10 Mar. 2021
  • When Grant’s second term ended in March of 1877, the progress towards racial equality had begun to backslide.
    Daniel Foster, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023
  • In the past, Beijing has initially carried out each round of sanctions, only to backslide.
    Author: Carol Morello, Alaska Dispatch News, 14 Aug. 2017
  • The Giants nearly became the first team to backslide from baseball’s best record at the All-Star break to missing the postseason entirely.
    Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2017
  • Fee reform 'might backslide' The aftermath of the 2008 recession looms large for those worried about the escalation of fines and fees.
    Eli Hager, USA TODAY, 22 Apr. 2020
  • Some set goals for a distant future, punting here, backsliding there.
    Brian T. Allen, National Review, 25 Jan. 2020
  • Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
    Jane Coaston, Vox, 12 Oct. 2018
  • But 12 years at the top is plenty for any U.S. Soccer president, and the trends on the field have been backsliding dramatically.
    Grant Wahl, SI.com, 11 Oct. 2017
  • Poland, a country whose government was (at the time) backsliding on democracy and the rule of law, but was staunchly anti-Russian, was not.
    Joshua Keating, Vox, 20 May 2024
  • The economic recovery is stalling and starting to backslide.
    Washington Post, 20 Nov. 2020
  • There is no reason to believe VW will backslide on its EV strategy just because that the man most identified with the strategy has been sacked.
    Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 25 July 2022
  • The continued spread of the coronavirus is raising worries that the economy could backslide again and snuff out the budding improvements it's shown.
    Elaine Kurtenbach, Star Tribune, 3 Aug. 2020
  • Supporters of afterschool have a huge amount of work to do to convince Congress not to backslide on afterschool funding.
    Miguel Garcia, Jr., Jodi Grant and Terri King, star-telegram, 6 Mar. 2018
  • The accumulation of these stories has an effect even if progress is too slow and backsliding is inevitable.
    Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2023
  • Kyrgios playing light-out at a smaller event, only to backslide the next event (see: Acapulco + Indian Wells).
    Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • Yet that decision surely shaped the woman who has gone on to butt heads with a stubborn, backsliding, even biased industry.
    Lisa Kennedy, Variety, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Patridge and Cabrera aren’t the only celebrities who are backsliding their way into summer.
    Allie Jones, The Cut, 1 May 2018
  • In Asia, Biden has bent over backward to woo a backsliding India, a communist Vietnam, and other not so liberal states.
    Hal Brands, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024
  • In the few years prior, there was a spike in firms pledging to make diversity a top priority following certain events, but these numbers didn’t hold and continue to backslide.
    Chris Gallagher, USA TODAY, 3 July 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'backslide.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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