0 to move the pedals (= parts you operate with your feet) backwards on a bicycle:
1 to change an opinion that you had expressed before, or do something different from what you had said you would do:
Both safeties backpedal towards their assigned zone.
We have heard only bluster and backpedal.
In both cases in course of time they came to backpedal very sharply.
The critics initially panned the show, but when it became clear the public loved it, most of them backpedalled.
While others maintain that he simply injured his knee, while backpedalling, and was unable to continue.
Having seen the earlier document, one appreciates that this provision is a piece of elegant backpedalling in an attempt to save face on the broad principle.
The people who are supposed to be paying for them—the banks—have not agreed them, so now he is backpedalling fast and no contracts have been signed.
I am not backpedalling on my praise of the procurator fiscal system, but we have to be careful about the extent to which we extend his role.
