Definition of back to the drawing board in English:
back to the drawing board
phrase
Used to indicate that an idea, plan, or proposal has been unsuccessful and that a new one must be devised.
‘the government must go back to the drawing board and review the whole issue of youth training’- ‘The developers must now go back to the drawing board in relation to this second phase of their project.’
- ‘The regulations must be sent back to the drawing board and revised to conform to the real world.’
- ‘York Council expects to send developers back to the drawing board over their proposals for the city's Barbican Centre.’
- ‘They have also decided to go back to the drawing board on the idea for bus priority in Shipton Road between Loweswater Road and Rawcliffe Lane.’
- ‘After New Yorkers rejected the first ideas, designers went back to the drawing board.’
- ‘Time and again, proposals are sent back to the drawing board, put back out to consultation, referred up then down then up again.’
- ‘They instead sent the whole proposal back to the drawing board for further consideration.’
- ‘It is back to the drawing board as the private finance initiative scheme is scrapped.’
- ‘The good scholars then go back to the drawing board and try to tweak their original idea, or come up with a new one.’
- ‘Perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board and ask whether the idea of splitting the North into three was the right way to go?’
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