From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishback off phrasal verb1 BACK/BACKWARDSto move backwards, away from someone or something She backed off and then turned and ran.2 FORCE somebody TO DO somethingto stop telling someone what to do, or stop criticizing them, especially so that they can deal with something themselves I think you should back off for a while. Back off, Marc! Let me run my own life!3 STOP DOING somethingto stop supporting something, or decide not to do something you were planning to do Jerry backed off when he realized how much work was involved. from The company has backed off from investing new money. → back→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
back from• They then backed off from a confrontation but stopped talking. 