beat back

English

Verb

beat back (third-person singular simple present beats back, present participle beating back, simple past beat back, past participle beaten back or beat back)

1. (transitive) To fight against and cause to recede.
   • 2020, Barack Obama, chapter 13, in A Promised Land, Crown:

     I couldn't expect people to understand how much their voices actually meant to me—how they had sustained my spirits and beat back whispering doubts on those late, solitary nights.

   • 2021 June 22, Nicholas Fandos, “Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill, Dealing Blow to Biden and Democrats”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     But the Republican blockade in the Senate left Democrats without a clear path forward, and without a means to beat back the restrictive voting laws racing through Republican-led states.

Anagrams

• back beat, backbeat