What is "backpedalled"

Usage examples of "backpedalled".

Joe staggered, ducked, clinched, backpedalled until Hilario called time again.

They backpedalled, and tried to retreat back to the mandarin obscurity of their cozy subcultural niches.

Stice drove this backhand hard down the line to Hal's forehand, a blazing thing that made the audience inhale, but as the samizdat's director's other son glided a few strides left Steeply could see that he now had a whole open court to hit cross-court into, Stice having hit so hard he'd backpedalled a bit off the shot and was now scrambling to get back out of the deuce corner, arid Hal hit the flat textbook drive cross-court into green lined space, hard but not flamboyantly so, and the diagonal of the ball kept it travelling out wide after it hit Stice's ad sideline, carrying it away from the boy in black's outstretched racquet, and for a second it looked as if Stice at a dead run might get his strings on the ball, but the ball stayed tantalizingly just out of reach, still travelling at a severe cross-court diagonal, and it passed Slice's racquet half a meter past its rim, and Slice's momentum carried him almost halfway into the next court.

She backpedalled and worked her way around the cat only to have it deftly interpose itself between her and the door again.