Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A setback or reversal.
  • noun An eddy or countercurrent in water.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To set upon in the rear.
  • To plow again, in the autumn, prairie-land which has been plowed for the first time in the preceding spring.
  • noun In lock-making, the horizontal distance between the front of the lock and the center of the keyhole: an essential measurement in lock-fitting.
  • noun A setting back or backward, as the result of some untoward circumstance or opposing agency; a check to progress; retardation, or the losing of ground; a relapse: as, he suffered more than one serious backset; a backset which appeared to be fatal.
  • noun An eddy or counter-current in flowing water.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A check; a relapse; a discouragement; a setback.
  • noun Whatever is thrown back in its course, as water.
  • transitive verb Western U.S. To plow again, in the fall; -- said of prairie land broken up in the spring.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb US, Western US To plow again in the fall; said of prairie land broken up in the spring.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

back +‎ set?

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