Adjacent Words

Backsliding definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BACKSLI'DING, n. The act of apostatizing from faith or practice; a falling insensibly from religion into sin or idolatry. Jer. v.6.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a failure to maintain a higher state [syn: backsliding, lapse, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion, reverting]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Backslide Back`slide", v. i. [imp. Backslid; p. p. Backslidden, Backslid; p. pr. & vb. n. Backsliding.] [Back, adv. + slide.] To slide back; to fall away; esp. to abandon gradually the faith and practice of a religion that has been professed.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Backsliding Back"slid"ing, a. Slipping back; falling back into sin or error; sinning. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord. --Jer. iii. 14.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Backsliding Back"slid"ing, n. The act of one who backslides; abandonment of faith or duty. Our backslidings are many. --Jer. xiv. 7.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you accuse someone of backsliding, you disapprove of them because they have failed to do something they promised or agreed to do, or have started again doing something undesirable that they had previously stopped doing. ...the government's backsliding on free market reforms... This may help to maintain the gains you've made and to prevent backsliding. [disapproval]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Apostasy.

Moby Thesaurus

Adamic, about-face, amorality, apostasy, apostate, atheism, atheistic, backing, backset, backslide, backward motion, backward step, betrayal, blasphemous, bolt, breakaway, carnal, carnality, criminality, defection, delinquency, desertion, disenchantment, disloyalty, erring, evil, evil nature, faithlessness, fall, fall from grace, fallen, fallen from grace, fleshly, flip-flop, frail, going over, immorality, impiety, impious, impiousness, impure, impurity, infirm, irreligion, irreligious, irreverence, irreverent, lapse, lapse from grace, lapsed, lapsing, moral delinquency, of easy virtue, peccability, peccable, postlapsarian, prodigal, prodigality, profanatory, profane, ratting, reaction, recession, recidivation, recidivism, recidivist, recidivistic, recidivous, reclamation, reconversion, recreancy, recreant, recrudescent, reentry, refluence, reflux, regress, regression, regressive, rehabilitation, reinstatement, relapse, relapsing, renegade, restitution, restoration, retroaction, retrocession, retroflexion, retrogradation, retrogression, retroversion, retrusion, return, returning, reversal, reverse, reversion, reverting, revulsion, rollback, sacrilegious, secession, setback, slipping back, sternway, throwback, treason, turn, turnabout, turning traitor, unangelic, unangelicalness, unchaste, unchastity, unclean, uncleanness, undutiful, undutifulness, ungodliness, ungodly, ungood, ungoodness, unmorality, unrighteous, unrighteousness, unsaintliness, unsaintly, unvirtuous, unvirtuousness, vice, viciousness, virtueless, wanton, wantonness, wayward, waywardness, weak, wrongdoing