The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

backoff

    A host which has experienced a collision on a
   network waits for a amount of time before attempting to
   retransmit.  A random backoff minimises the probability that
   the same nodes will collide again, even if they are using the
   same backoff algorithm.  Increasing the backoff period after
   each collision also helps to prevent repeated collisions,
   especially when the network is heavily loaded.

   An example algorithm is binary exponential backoff.

   (1996-05-28)