fight back

From fight and back.

• IPA^(key): /faɪt bæk/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [fʌɪt bæk]

fight back (third-person singular simple present fights back, present participle fighting back, simple past and past participle fought back)

1. (intransitive) To defend oneself by fighting.

   The bully hadn't been expecting his victim to fight back, and now the bully has quadriplegia.

   1. (intransitive) To counterattack (counterstrike); to resist an attack or respond after one.

      During the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. Navy began fighting back, and it wouldn't stop until August 1945.

      • 1996, “Return to Grace”, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 4, episode 14 (Science Fiction), →OCLC:

        KIRA: You can change their minds. Convince your fellow Cardassians to go on the offensive.
        DUKAT: No, I'd be wasting my breath. They wouldn't listen to me. No one wants to fight. There was a time when the mere mention of my race inspired fear. And now we're beaten people, afraid to fight back because we don't want to lose what little is left.

      • 2015 June 9, “Women’s World Cup 2015: England beaten by France in Group F opener”, in The Guardian (London)‎^[1]:

        With Scott and the outstanding Claire Rafferty in particular fighting back, all was not lost.

      • 2021 August 25, Richard Foster, “The rise and fall of railway's Big Four...”, in RAIL, number 938, pages 54–55:

        The 1928 Royal Commission on Transport not only set some controls for the road haulage industry, it also gave the railway companies the opportunity to fight back.

2. (transitive) to repress; to struggle to repress.

   fight back tears

   She tried to fight back her laughter.

   It was especially after the Battle of Midway that the U.S. was able to fight the Japanese back toward their home islands.

3. (intransitive, in sports) To overturn a losing deficit.