Definition of "backslide" [back•slide]

• To revert to sin or wrongdoing, especially in religious practice. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I find in myself a natural aversion to my duty, and to spiritual and divine exercises, and a propensity to that which is evil, such an inclination towards the world and the flesh as amounts to a propensity to backslide from the living"
• "SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Just a few months after passing comprehensive health reform, U.S. lawmakers appear willing to risk a short-term backslide in the push to reduce the number of uninsured Americans until the overhaul's major provisions take effect in"
• "Somewhere along the way, deep in our long term backslide in education spending and the decline of leisure time we produced a society of people impatient to study a situation then react in a non-violent way."