English

Snakes send one back to square one

Adjective

back to square one ‎(not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Located back at the start, as after a dead-end or failure.

   After spending six hours on the intake we realized that there was nothing wrong with it, so we are back to square one.

   • 1952 Edward Maurice Hugh-Jones, The Economic Journal, “The American Economy, 1860–1940. by A. J. Youngson Brown”, p. 411:^[2]

     Withal he has the problem of maintaining the interest of the reader who is always being sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game of snakes and ladders.

Translations

Adverb

back to square one ‎(not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Back to the start, as after a dead-end or failure.

   After spending six hours on the intake we realized that there was nothing wrong with it, so we went back to square one.

Translations

See also

• back to the drawing board

References

1. ↑ “Extract revised for OED Online”, in Oxford English Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year)
2. 1 2 “Back to square one”, The Phrase Finder, Gary Martin.