Wiktionary
vb. 1 (&lit: English) To pull in a backwards direction 2 To retreat 3 To retract 4 (context transitive English) to pull in order to reveal something underneath or behind. 5 (context transitive sports English) To pass (the ball) into a position further from the attacking goal line. 6 (context transitive sports English) To score when the team is losing.
WordNet
v. pull back or move away or backward; "The enemy withdrew"; "The limo pulled away from the curb" [syn: withdraw, retreat, pull away, draw back, recede, retire, move back]
use a surgical instrument to hold open (the edges of a wound or an organ) [syn: retract, draw back]
move to a rearward position; pull towards the back; "Pull back your arms!"
pull back the sling of (a bow); "The archers were drawing their bows" [syn: draw]
make a retreat from an earlier commitment or activity; "We'll have to crawfish out from meeting with him"; "He backed out of his earlier promise"; "The aggressive investment company pulled in its horns" [syn: retreat, back out, back away, crawfish, crawfish out, pull in one's horns, withdraw]
Wikipedia
Pull back means "pull in a backwards direction"; more specifically, it may refer to:
Mathematics- Pullback (category theory), a limit of a diagram consisting of two morphisms
- Pullback (differential geometry), a mapping between differential forms
- Pullback (cohomology), a mapping between cell complexes
- Pullback bundle, the fiber bundle induced by a map of its base space
- Pullback motor, a simple clockwork motor used in toy cars
Usage examples of "pull back".
He suppressed an irrational impulse to pull back and punch his august guest right in the jaw.
President Truman insisted and went so far as to threaten war if the Soviets did not pull back behind their own borders.
Would Garak pull back the curtain someday to reveal a door through which his people could retake all they had lost?
The next day, the Iraqis, surprised by the strength and speed of our response, announced that they would pull back their forces, and within a month the Iraqi parliament recognized Kuwait’.
And the older trees then begin to pull their roots in and pull back into the center.
But Mark is trying to navigate an unfamiliar and terrifying terrain, and he can't pull back far enough to see the contour of the landscape.
The expansion will have to stop, and as the ships grow scarce they will have to pull back.
Men stood on one booted foot, with the other leg out straight, foot at shoulder height, reaching out with their hands to pull back on their toes, stretching the Achilles tendon.
But he couldn't even pull back on the fishing rod to set the hook yet.
A simian may pull back its lips in the same fashion humans do when they smile, but among simians, this expression does not indicate friendliness.
And if we are able to make this point then we can pull back, we can pull back and we can transcend.