Words / B / Business

backpedal

verb/ˈbækpedl/

B2CEFR level
40/100Rarity: uncommon
TechnicalRegister

To retreat from a commitment or position previously taken.

Once the numbers were scrutinised, they backpedalled on the revenue guarantees they had promised.

Similar: retreat, backtrack, renege

Topic: Negotiation in Business English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More business words: Negotiation