The alternate movement of a steamboat. Literal and metaphorical.
1848. The steam was well up upon both boats, which lay rolling, and backing, and filling, from the action of the paddles, at the dock.—Durivage and Burnham, ‘Stray Subjects, How the Yankee Made a Quarter,’ p. 174.
1854. There has been (too) much backing and filling, not only upon the Cuban question, but upon every other.—N.Y. Herald, June 15 (Bartlett).
1854. Men will be sent to Congress who will not “back and fill,” and be on one principle for one week, one month, and one moon, and upon another principle another week, and month, and moon.—Mr. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, House of Repr., Dec. 11: Cong. Globe, p. 57.
1855. Now I must ask you, Gineral, what in thunder Mr. Marcy means by backin’ an’ fillin’ so.—Seba Smith, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ p. 432 (1860).
1858. He wound up his wondrous performance by reeling gracefully up to the youthful Countess of Livorno, with the ‘rolling motion,’ and ‘backing and filling’ twice around her, each time imprinting a kiss on her cherry-colored lips.—Knick. Mag., li. 152 (Feb.).
1869. How in the world he [the Gondolier] can back and fill, shoot straight ahead, or flirt suddenly around a corner, and make the oar stay in those insignificant notches, is a problem to me and a never diminishing matter of interest.—Mark Twain, ‘The Innocents Abroad,’ ch. xxiii.
1887. The reader need no longer wonder at the “backing and filling” of the Iroquois, around the little Sumter.—Semmes, ‘Service Afloat,’ p. 255 (Balt.).
