Flashback

UK: /ˈflæʃbæk/ US: /ˈflæʃˌbæk/ ,(flash′bak′)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026

flash•back /ˈflæʃˌbæk/   n. 

1. Literature
   • [uncountable] a technique in literature or film in which an earlier event is depicted after the time it actually occurred.
   • [countable] the scene so shown:
     In a flashback we see her remembering that summer at the beach.
2. Psychiatry a vivid recollection of a past event:
   [countable] a sudden flashback of the accident.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026

flash•back  (flash′bak′), n. 

1. a device in the narrative of a motion picture, novel, etc., by which an event or scene taking place before the present time in the narrative is inserted into the chronological structure of the work.
2. an event or scene so inserted.
3. Psychiatry Also called flash′back hallucino′sis. 
   • the spontaneous recurrence of visual hallucinations or other effects of a drug, as LSD, long after the use of the drug has been discontinued.
   • recurrent and abnormally vivid recollection of a traumatic experience, as a battle, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations.

• 1910–15; 1965–70 for def. 3; noun, nominal use of verb, verbal phrase flash back

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

flashback / ˈflæʃˌbæk/ noun

1. a transition in a novel, film, etc, to an earlier scene or event