row back

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row back

1. (Britain, idiomatic) To slightly change a previous opinion about something, or what was said.
   • 2013, Paul Harris, Lance Armstrong faces multi-million dollar legal challenges after confession (in The Guardian, 19 January 2013)

     Indeed, part of the problem was that Armstrong was rowing back on so much previous behaviour and years of aggressive lambasting of reporters, officials and team-mates who had claimed he was doping. "I don't forgive Lance Armstrong, who lied to me in two interviews. And I suspect most of America won't, either," Kurtz wrote.

• row-back

row back (plural row backs)

1. Alternative form of row-back

• back row