English Explanatory Dictionary

back to the drawing board

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adv
  1. Indicates that one must try a different strategy in order to achieve some goal following the failure of a recent attempt.

Pronunciation

en-au-back to the drawing board.ogg

Word forms

back to the drawing board back to the old drawing board

Etymology

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

Related words

square one back to square one
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