go back to the drawing board

Fig. to return to the planning stage, so that a failed project can be planned again. These plans have to go back to the drawing board. I thought these problems went back to the drawing board once already.

go back to the drawing board

to start something again because the previous attempt failed Researchers went back to the drawing board to find where they went wrong.

Usage notes: sometimes used without go: When we thought we were finished, he sent us back to the drawing board and asked us to completely redo it.

Related vocabulary: back to square one

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Amity	AM-i-tee	English (Rare)
Evgeny	yev-GYE-nee, eev-GYE-nee	Russian
Nurzhan	-	Kazakh
Fabiano	fah-BYAH-no (Italian)	Italian, Portuguese
AmÁLie	-	Czech
Aatami	AH:-tah-mee	Finnish