The phrase “taken aback” is a combination of two words. Aback was once two separate words that were merged into two to mean a backward movement. The first appearance of this phrase was in 1697 in a London newspaper and was used to describe the sails of a ship as they caught the wind.

Taken Aback Etymology The simple phrase “taken aback” has its roots in nautical terminology and dates back to the 1700s. In the days of sailing ships, when a vessel’s sails were suddenly filled by the wind from the opposite direction, sailors said it was “taken aback.”

Taken aback Originally, this was a nautical term dating from the late 1600s, and possibly before, for when a sudden gust of wind came from straight ahead would set the sails back against the masts. This would, of course, halt the forward motion of a sailing ship, and the sails and the ship would literally be ‘taken aback’.