watch-your-back
Chunk: watch your back
Meaning & Usage
To watch your back means to be careful and stay alert to hidden dangers or people who might betray you. It is often used in highly competitive or toxic environments where people cannot be trusted.
🧲 Common Collocates
- Structures: have to watch your back, tell someone to watch their back.
- Contexts: office politics, dangerous neighborhoods, competitive industries.
💬 Contextual Examples
- The corporate culture at that company is terrible; everyone will steal your ideas, so you really have to watch your back.
- When you walk through this neighborhood at night, make sure you watch your back.
- He made a lot of enemies during his career, so he always had to watch his back.
🎴 Interactive Web Practice
Practice 1: Office politics are brutal here. You really need to watch your ______.
Answer:
back Practice 2: The spy knew he had been compromised and had to ______ his back constantly.
Answer:
watch Practice 3: It is exhausting working in an environment where you always have ______ watch your back.
Answer:
to