backward
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbæk.wə(ɹ)d/
enpr: băk'wərd
ipa: /ˈbækwɚd/
Forms: form: more backward
form: most backward
Etymology: From Middle English bakwarde, abakward, equivalent to back (adverb) + -ward. Cognate with Old Frisian bekward (“backward”).
Senses: examples: text: The silt collects in the backward part of the tank.
glosses: Indicating position or direction.
Situated toward or at the rear of something.
examples: text: a backward tilt of the head
glosses: Indicating position or direction.
Acting or moving in the direction opposite to that in which someone or something is facing.
examples: text: The occasional apparent backward movement of planets is evidence that they revolve around the sun.
text: Engage the lock to prevent backward rotation of the wheel.
glosses: Indicating position or direction.
Acting or moving in the direction opposite to the usual direction of movement.
synonyms: retrograde
examples: text: This is a backward step for the country.
glosses: Indicating position or direction.
Acting or moving oppositely to the desired direction of progress.
examples: text: This backward writing is hard to read.
glosses: Indicating position or direction.
Reversed in order or sequence.
examples: text: The child is backward in his school work.
text: The effect is to retard their progress—giving them too little opportunity and too little incentive for copying the language of adults— and a little later the child is pained and the parents' ears tingle at hearing a chance remark: “ How terribly backward she is about talking."
ref: 1882, Charles Edward Page, How to feed the baby to make it healthy and happy, page 133:
text: The fact that a child is backward in talking is no sign of defective intelligence, nor does it prove that it will be a slow pupil.
ref: 1910, Leonard Keene Hirshberg, What You Ought to Know about Your Baby, page 19:
text: Rickety children are backward in teething, and when the teeth do appear, they decay very rapidly. The children are backward in walking and backward in talking and the soft-spot (fontanel) on the top of the head remains open months longer than it should.
ref: 1925, Louis Fischer, The Health-care of the Baby: A Handbook for Mothers and Nurses, page 170:
glosses: Expressing lack of development or advancement.
Retarded in development; not as advanced as would be expected.
examples: text: They were a backward people without any writing.
text: Most cruelly, the immediate security interests of the United States and the states surrounding Somalia are now to keep it a failed state, to prevent Islamists from consolidating even a weak state centered on Mogadishu. The leader of the victorious faction, one Aden Hashi 'Ayro, is said to be a veteran of Afghanistan; he knows well what a small sanctuary in a backward corner of the globe can mean for al Qaeda.
ref: 2006, Tom Donnelly, “Back to Mogadishu?”, in Armed Forces Journal, archived from the original on 08 Jan 2009:
glosses: Expressing lack of development or advancement.
Of a culture, country, practice etc., undeveloped or unsophisticated.
examples: text: a backward child
glosses: Expressing lack of development or advancement.
Slow to apprehend; having difficulties in learning.
examples: text: The party’s ideas and policies are very backward.
glosses: Expressing lack of development or advancement.
Lacking progressive or enlightened thought; outdated.
synonyms: word: antediluvian
word: antiquated
word: backwards
word: parachronistic
word: retrograde
word: anachronistic
word: antediluvial
word: antediluvian
word: antiquated
word: antique
word: archaic
word: backward
word: backwards
word: behind the times
word: cobwebbed
word: cobwebby
word: dated
word: defunct
word: discontinued
word: disused
word: dootsie
word: elderly
word: extinct
word: expired
word: fossilized
word: Havishamesque
word: idle
word: Miss Havishamesque
word: obsolete
word: old
word: oldfangled
word: old-fashioned
word: old school
word: outdated
word: outmoded
word: out of date
word: out of fashion
word: outworn
word: parachronistic
word: passé
word: superannuated
word: superseded
word: unemployed
word: unoccupied
word: venerable
word: workless
antonyms: progressive
examples: text: a backward season
text: "[…] I've a job of work to finish tonight; mourning, as must be in time for the funeral to-morrow; and grandfather has been out moss- hunting, and will not be home till late."
"Oh, how charming it will be! I'll help you if you're backward. Have you much to do?"
ref: 1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton:
text: We have had a long run of heavy, wet and squally weather; the dry season is two months backward, and the Lepidoptera have not appeared so abundantly as they should have done.
ref: 1855, The zoologist: a popular miscellany of natural history, Volume 14:
text: Rickety children are backward in teething, and when the teeth do appear, they decay very rapidly.
ref: 1925, Louis Fischer, The Health-care of the Baby: A Handbook for Mothers and Nurses, page 170:
glosses: Expressing lack of development or advancement.
Late or behindhand.
synonyms: word: overdue
word: tardy
word: backward
word: behindhand
word: belated
word: late
word: lated
word: overdue
word: tardy
examples: text: She certainly isn’t backward in coming forward!
text: Then her eyes, always alert for the affairs of her kitchen, fell on some action of the Chinese cook which aroused her violent disapproval. She turned on him with a torrent of abuse. The Chink was not backward to defend himself, and a very lively quarrel ensued.
ref: 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 51”, in The Moon and Sixpence:
text: Don’t be backward in suggesting story ideas to local media but always think of the wants, needs and desires of their readers when selling-in story ideas.
ref: 2003 August, “Media Prospecting”, in Mortgage Magazine, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2006:
glosses: Reluctant or unwilling to advance or act; shy.
raw_tags: in negative constructions
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: Of a pawn, further behind than pawns of the same colour on adjacent files and unable to be moved forward safely.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: On that part of the field behind the batsman's popping crease.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Further behind the batsman's popping crease than something else.
examples: text: For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves.
ref: 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest, line 50:
glosses: Unwilling; averse; reluctant.
examples: text: The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, / and flies unconscious o'er each backward year.
ref: 1812–1818, George Gordon Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 2, verse 24:
synonyms: word: forepast
word: historical
word: backward
word: bygone
word: foregone
word: forepassed
word: forepast
word: historic
word: historical
word: long ago
word: olden
word: past
word: preterite
glosses: Already past or gone; bygone.
Synonyms: sense: toward the back
word: hindwards
sense: toward the back
word: rearward
sense: toward the back
word: retrograde
sense: in the opposite direction of usual
word: contrariwise
word: reversedly
sense: so that the back precedes the front
word: back to front
word: in reverse
sense: reversed
word: mirror image
sense: reversed
word: switched
sense: reversed
word: back to front
sense: undeveloped
word: crude
word: dated
word: obsolete
word: primitive
Derived terms: ass-backward
ass backward
backwardation
backward compatibility
backward-compatible
backward compatible
backward compliment
backward design
backward dive
backward in coming forward
backward induction
backward integration
backwardism
backward linkage
backward-looking
backward-lookingness
backwardly
backward masking
backwardness
backward pass
backward pawn
backward rationalization
backward slash
backward time machine
bend over backward
camback
fast backward
forward-backward algorithm
other backward class
unbackward
work backward