'front to back' and 'back to front'? (2025)

What kind of positions or postures are meant by 'front to back' and 'back to front'?
I have no idea!! Do they mean the same and is it like someone stands/ sits/ lies down backing on to the view of someone else, so, to that 'someone else', that someone's front is the back and back is the front??

Please help!!

These aren't "positions" in the way I think of positions. Please give us a sentence and describe the context.

We have previous threads on back to front, but since I don't know your meaning, I don't know if they will help.

Copyright said:

These aren't "positions" in the way I think of positions. Please give us a sentence and describe the context.

We have previous threads on back to front, but since I don't know your meaning, I don't know if they will help.

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(of two people) lie close together sideways and front to back, so as to fit together like spoons.
Source: spoon means - Google Search

the exhausts had been fitted back to front’
Source: back to front | Definition of back to front in English by Oxford Dictionaries

I guess, I have grasped the meaning of 'back to front'.
But I've no ideas about 'front to back'.

Dear life said:

(of two people) lie close together sideways and front to back, so as to fit together like spoons.
Source: spoon means - Google Search

the exhausts had been fitted back to front’
Source: back to front | Definition of back to front in English by Oxford Dictionaries

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When you put on a t -shirt (collar less) back to front, you wear the t shirt the other way round. The back side is at the front and the front side is at the back.

Thank you a lot...

london calling said:

Front to back isn't. In your example a person sleeps with his/her front against someone else's back

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Could I use 'back to front' the same way i.e. someone lying with his/ her back against someone else's front (if someone pressing his/ her back to someone else's front)?

Dear life said:

Could I use 'back to front' the same way i.e. someone lying with his/ her back against someone else's front (if someone pressing his/ her back to someone else's front)?

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Can you propose a sentence, please? It's difficult to give informed advice when an expression appears in isolation.

sound shift said:

Can you propose a sentence, please? It's difficult to give informed advice when an expression appears in isolation.

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I myself have no idea & that's my problem. I found 'front to back' in a definition of 'spoon'-

(of two people) lie close together sideways and front to back, so as to fit together like spoons.
Source: spoon means - Google Search

Click to expand...

So I was wondering if I could use 'back to front' the same way meaning someone's back pressed against someone else's front, although it's a set phrase and has a different meaning.

Dear life said:

I myself have no idea & that's my problem. I found 'front to back' in a definition of 'spoon'-

So I was wondering if I could use 'back to front' the same way meaning someone's back pressed against someone else's front, although it's a set phrase and has a different meaning.

Click to expand...

People sleeping back to front? No, I wouldn't understand that to mean "lie close together sideways and front to back, so as to fit together like spoons.".