phrasal verb

• Reply defiantly or insolently.

  ‘all children talk back and act up from time to time’

  More example sentences

  • ‘he was always talking back to Dad about chores’
  • ‘Someone here said how their parents taught them to talk back if they disagreed with something.’
  • ‘He is the sort who talks back, but I think it is fine to have a bit of character.’
  • ‘She does an impression of a tough gal waiting tables in a diner, wearing the uniform with the name-badge and feistily talking back to the guy serving up food through the hatch.’
  • ‘But the kids routinely must ask forgiveness from the school community for misbehavior: disrupting class, talking back to teachers, failing to do homework.’
  • ‘So I turned to crimping my hair, wearing ripped up belly-shirts year-round, parading in knee high buckskin footwear, disrobing in poor taste and talking back to my momma.’
  • ‘Some supporter was shouting to him and he was talking back and I told him to calm down.’
  • ‘Misbehavior can be talking back to a correctional officer.’
  • ‘Venial sins were the small-time stuff: white lies and petty larceny, like talking back and stealing candy.’
  • ‘We can't have them talking back to their government masters.’
  • ‘Hence you would never talk back to a teacher, in fact you wouldn't even dream of talking back to a teacher or being disrespectful in my days.’

  Synonyms

  answer back, answer defiantly, be impertinent, answer impertinently, be cheeky, be rude, contradict, argue with, disagree with

  View synonyms