Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—B

Back

(To) To support with money, influence, or encouragement: as to “back a friend.” A commercial term meaning to endorse. When a merchant backs or endorses a bill, he guarantees its value.

Falstaff says to the Prince:

“You care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing!” —Shakespeare: I Henry IV, ii.4.

“Englishmen will fight now as well as ever they did; and there is ample power to back them.” —W. Robertson: John Bright, Chap. xxxi. p. 293.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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