Back To The Drawing Board

Meaning of Idiom ‘Back to the Drawing Board’

Back to the drawing board means that an effort has failed and it is time to start over from the beginning, or nearly from the beginning, and devise a new plan or approach. To go back to the drawing board is to go back to the initial planning or design stage.

This idiom is similar to the expression back to square one.

Sentence Examples

“The experiment completely failed, it’s back to the drawing board.”

“They rejected the new budget plan completely so now we’re back to the drawing board.”

“The product had some problems so instead of trying to fix it we went back to the drawing board.”

“Meredith said there are problems. You might have to go back to the drawing board.”— Disclosure (1994)

“This layout needs to pop. It needs to be lush. We need to make our readers want to buy. Go back to the drawing board, give me something with some sort of style, because this isn’t it.” — For Colored Girls (2010)

“I mean, it still needs to be tweaked and tuned. You only tweak and tune if something has potential.” “We’ll go back to the drawing board then, that’s all.”— Gray Matters (2007)

“It must be the formula. We haven’t hit on it yet.” “We’ll just have to try again.” “Right, back to the drawing board.” — Mad Men: Far Away Places (2012)

“That’s pathetic.” “Aw, geez, I put a lot of time into this… back to the drawing board.” — The Simpsons: Replaceable You (2011)

“Evolution reshapes existing structures over generations, adapting them with small changes. It can’t just go back to the drawing board and start from scratch.” — Cosmons: A Spacetime Odyssey: Some of the Things That Molecules Do (2014)

“Ugh! What’s with this outfit? It looks like a lion ate a parrot and then threw up.” “Well, back to the drawing board.” — The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XVII (2006)

“So, I guess Ralph was telling the truth. These pictures proved he moved Jerry. ‘s Head. Back to the drawing board.” — Stalkerazzi (2004)

“All right, everyone, back to the drawing board. Legal rejected all our ideas. Every name we came up with was offensive in some language.” — 30 Rock: The Funcooker (2009)

Origin

The idiom ‘back to the drawing board’ refers to the fact that many new ideas, projects, designs, etc., start as plans on a drawing board when in their earliest phase.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, it probably originated during World War II, from the caption of a cartoon by Peter Arno in The New Yorker magazine. The cartoon featured a man who was holding a set of blueprints while watching an airplane explode. 1Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013

 

More Idioms Starting with B

• Beat a Dead Horse
• Buck For Something
• Bottomless Pit
• Barge In
• Bone Of Contention, a

More Back Idioms

• Know Something Like the Back Of One’s Hand
• Run Back
• Behind Someone’s Back (to do something)
• Back Street and Back Alley
• Back in the Day

More Draw Idioms

• Run a Bath
• Quick On The Draw
• Luck Of The Draw
• Drawn Like a Moth to a Flame
• Draw the Short Straw

This page contains one or more affiliate links. See full affiliate disclosure.