back to the drawing board

English

Alternative forms

• back to the old drawing board

Etymology

Coined as “Well, back to the old drawing board.” as the caption of a Peter Arno cartoon of The New Yorker of March 1, 1941, depicting an engineer walking away from a crashed plane.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Adverb

back to the drawing board

1. (idiomatic) Back to the beginning following an unsuccessful attempt.

   Well, that didn't work at all, so it's back to the drawing board, I guess.

Translations

back to the beginning

• Dutch: terug bij af
• Portuguese: de volta à prancheta de desenho
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: нача́ть с нуля́ pf (načátʹ s nuljá) (verb, "to start from zero")
• Swedish: tillbaka till ritbordet

See also

• square one