go back to square one



go back to square one

Fig. to return to the starting point. (Alludes to the squares of a board game.) It's back to square one. We have to start over. It looks like it's back to square one for you.
See also: back, one, square

Common Names:

NameGenderPronouncedUsage
Rok-Slovene
Ladislava-Czech, Slovak
Odom['əudəm]
YuliaYOO-lee-yah (Russian)Russian, Ukrainian
JoelJOL (English), JO-əl (English), ho-EL (Spanish), zhoo-EL (Portuguese), YO-el (Swedish, Finnish)English, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Biblical
Sokratis-Greek