callback

call +‎ back

callback (plural callbacks)

1. The return of a situation to a previous position or state.
   • 2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Aiden Gillen whimpers on his knees, stretching for the first time in years. And finally Sansa sentences him, and Arya swings the sword, or dagger as the case may be. For all the historical callbacks in the episode, and in its old age Game Of Thrones keeps portentously reciting old lines verbatim, this callback is the most resonant. Ned always said the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. His daughters are finding a different way forward.

2. (telephony) A return telephone or radio call; especially one made automatically to authenticate a logon to a computer network.
   • 2007, James M. Lepkowski, Clyde Tucker, J. Michael Brick, Advances in Telephone Survey Methodology (page 318)

     For example, multiple callbacks might be made to a nonanswered number to increase the response rate.

3. A product recall because of a defect or safety concern.
4. (programming) A function pointer passed to another function that the latter can call for notification purposes.
5. (theater) a follow-up audition (casting)
6. (comedy) a joke which references an earlier joke in the same routine
   • 2012 August 21, Jason Heller, “The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land), Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself. And, despite Hawkins’ inveterate crotch-grabbing, there was never that much meat there to begin with.

• (joke): running gag

• call back