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take a back seat

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take a back seat

 

1. if an activity takes a back seat, you spend less time doing that than other things He's been putting all his energies into house-hunting recently so his studies have had to take a back seat. (sometimes + to ) In my early twenties, politics very much took a back seat to sport and socializing.

2. to let other people take a more active and responsible part in an organization or a situation I was content to take a back seat and let the rest of my family deal with the crisis.

See also: back, seat, take

take a back seat

Occupy an inferior position; allow another to be in control. For example, Linda was content to take a back seat and let Nancy run the meeting. This idiom uses back seat in contrast to the driver's seat, that is, the one in control. [Mid-1800s]

See also: back, seat, take