backslide

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to return to a worse condition, habit, or standard after improving

   A reform can backslide when its safeguards are no longer enforced.

2. 2
   noun

   a return to a worse state or former bad behavior

   The committee treated the exception as a serious backslide from its ethical standard.

A compound of back + slide. Its literal image of slipping backward developed into moral, religious, political, and institutional senses of reverting to a worse state.

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