Drawback

How to spell drawback

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce drawback

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does drawback mean?

1. nounA feature or factor that makes something less convenient, useful, or desirable.

Drawback in a sentence

• The main drawback of the apartment is the lack of parking.

• Working from home has one significant drawback: constant distractions.

Where does drawback come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a native English compound, formed by joining the verb 'draw', meaning to pull, with 'back', meaning toward the rear, both of which come straight from Old English (dragan and baec). Its earliest sense in the late 1600s was a financial one: a 'drawback' was an amount of duty or tax that was drawn back, that is, refunded, when imported goods were re-exported. From the literal idea of something being pulled back or taken away, the meaning broadened to describe anything that detracts from an otherwise good situation. By the early 1700s it had settled into its familiar modern sense of a disadvantage or negative feature. Because both halves are common everyday words, the spelling holds no real trap; the only thing to remember is that it is written as a single solid word.

How the word is built

• draw (to pull)
• back (to the rear); a compound noun