back and fill

English

Verb

back and fill (third-person singular simple present back and fills, present participle back and filling, simple past and past participle back and filled)

1. (nautical) To manage the sails of a ship so that the wind strikes them alternately in front and behind, in order to keep the ship in the middle of a river or channel while the current or tide carries the vessel against the wind.
2. (figurative) To take opposite positions alternately; to assert and deny.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “back and fill”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)