How to Use take a back seat in a Sentence

take a back seat

idiomatic phrase
  • Football’s Xs and Os take a back seat for the first night.
    — Rob Maaddi, Chicago Tribune, 3 Feb. 2025
  • Bond seems to have taken a back seat—for now, at least.
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 8 Aug. 2024
  • Overall, the health needs of women in Bangladesh take a back seat to those of men.
    — Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2024
  • The Super Bowl was a reminder of how skill takes a back seat to the trenches.
    — Chris Vannini, The Athletic, 19 Feb. 2025
  • Adams hopes to be able to take a back seat in the day-to-day programming at the retreat.
    — Essence, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Male artists are taking a back seat at the 2024 Grammys.
    — Mesfin Fekadu, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Nov. 2023
  • But a lot of the orchard practices took a back seat in recent years.
    — Christine Lennon, Sunset Magazine, 20 Aug. 2024
  • The 1970s also marked the moment that homemade food took a back seat, says Gray.
    — Claire Turrell, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 May 2023
  • My pain was in the driver’s seat, and everything else took a back seat.
    — Vanessa Etienne, Peoplemag, 23 Aug. 2023
  • My pain was in the driver’s seat, and everything else took a back seat.
    — Erin Clack, People.com, 19 Jan. 2025
  • And in this race, as with the clipper ship captains, caution might take a back seat to speed.
    — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 20 Feb. 2024
  • Flirting is an art form that has taken a back seat due to the rise of dating apps.
    — Dominique Fluker, Essence, 20 Sep. 2024
  • The tannins take a back seat to acidity, which will help this wine age for decades.
    — Tom Mullen, Forbes.com, 6 July 2025
  • But when war broke out in Ukraine in 2022 and in Gaza the next year, the Indo-Pacific once again took a back seat.
    — Jennifer Lind, Foreign Affairs, 24 June 2025
  • At what cost? Elon Musk takes a back seat as Trump reaches 100 days in office.
    — Rebecca Morin, USA Today, 30 Apr. 2025
  • Amid all that, the movie itself has taken a back seat, until now.
    — Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 2 May 2025
  • Website and mobile app design skills take a back seat to a new skillset.
    — Ron Shevlin, Forbes, 18 July 2022
  • With the city taking a back seat, it has been left to nonprofits like Flatbush Cats to take up the slack.
    — Richard Schiffman Erin Schaff, New York Times, 8 June 2023
  • Even among his defenders, free speech took a back seat.
    — Russell Jacoby, Harper's Magazine, 16 Feb. 2023
  • Biden appears to be taking a back seat in his final weeks.
    — Cate Martel, The Hill, 24 Dec. 2024
  • In some cases, growth will take a back seat to geopolitics.
    — Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor, 23 Jan. 2025
  • In this instance, truth took a back seat to the FBI’s reputation.
    — Brett Forrest, Time, 7 June 2023
  • Now, with some of that money clawed back, there is a question about what programs may take a back seat.
    — Fatima Hussein and Kevin Freking, BostonGlobe.com, 1 June 2023
  • LeBron James James takes a back seat to his new teammate this time around, coming in third.
    — Nicholas Creel, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Apr. 2025
  • By the early 1990’s, hair metal’s glory took a back seat to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and grunge.
    — A.d. Amorosi, Variety, 16 Aug. 2024
  • For her, sugar takes a back seat to the depth of flavors in salty snacks and marinated bites.
    — Cori Sears, Better Homes & Gardens, 4 Feb. 2026
  • High school sports might have to take a back seat next week.
    — Jacob Rousseau, The Providence Journal, 29 Jan. 2026
  • But when the legislative session was over, Keane said, everything took a back seat to family.
    — Keith M. Phaneuf, Hartford Courant, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Because when your first loyalty is to Trump, everything else takes a back seat.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 22 Jan. 2026
  • Gregg said sobriety took a back seat to his more immediate needs, such as finding food and a bed in a shelter.
    — Aaron Bolton, NPR, 6 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'take a back seat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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