Definitions

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

  • noun The part of the trunk of the human body along and to the sides of the spine between the neck and the pelvis; the dorsum.
  • noun The analogous dorsal region in other animals.
  • noun The backbone or spine.
  • noun The part or area farthest from the front.
  • noun The part opposite to or behind that adapted for view or use.
  • noun The reverse side, as of a coin.
  • noun A part that supports or strengthens from the rear.
  • noun The part of a book where the pages are stitched or glued together into the binding.
  • noun The binding itself.
  • noun A player who takes a position behind the front line of other players in certain games, such as football and soccer.
  • noun In swimming, backstroke.
  • intransitive verb To cause to move backward or in a reverse direction.
  • intransitive verb To furnish or strengthen with a back or backing.
  • intransitive verb To provide with financial or moral support.
  • intransitive verb To be in favor of; endorse or advocate: synonym: support.
  • intransitive verb To provide with musical accompaniment. Often used with up.
  • intransitive verb To bet or wager on.
  • intransitive verb To adduce evidence in support of; substantiate.
  • intransitive verb To form the back or background of.
  • intransitive verb To move backward.
  • intransitive verb To shift to a counterclockwise direction. Used of the wind.
  • adjective Located or placed in the rear.
  • adjective Distant from a center of activity; remote.
  • adjective Of a past date; not current.
  • adjective Being owed or due from an earlier time; in arrears.
  • adjective Being in a backward direction.
  • adjective Linguistics Pronounced with the back of the tongue, as oo in cool. Used of vowels.
  • adverb At, to, or toward the rear or back.
  • adverb In, to, or toward a former location.
  • adverb In, to, or toward a former condition.
  • adverb In, to, or toward a past time.
  • adverb In reserve or concealment.
  • adverb In check or under restraint.
  • adverb In reply or return.
  • idiom Nautical (back and fill) To maneuver a vessel in a narrow channel by adjusting the sails so as to let the wind in and out of them in alteration.
  • idiom (back and fill) To vacillate in one's actions or decisions.
  • idiom (back to back) Consecutively and without interruption.
  • idiom (behind (one's) back) In one's absence or without one's knowledge.
  • idiom (have got (someone's) back) To be prepared or ready to support or vouch for someone, as in a crisis.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English bak, from Old English bæc.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dutch bak, from French bac, from Old French, boat, from Vulgar Latin *baccus, vessel, probably of Celtic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English bak, from Old English bæc, from Proto-Germanic *bakan (cf. Old Saxon bak (Middle Low German bak ("back")), West Frisian bekling 'chair back', Old High German bah, Swedish bak), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰogo 'bending'. The adverb represents an aphetic form of aback.

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Examples

  • 'We will take New Orleans back' yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = '\'We will take New Orleans back\' '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: Two years after Katrina tore through the mouth of the Mississippi, a New Orleans parent, after running an obstacle course that can take many months, is only sometimes able to place his or her child in a school. '

    'We will take New Orleans back' 2007

  • The warm atmosphere radiates some of its energy back down to earth – this latter is sometimes termed “back radiation”.

    Unthreaded #19 « Climate Audit 2007

  • The warm atmosphere radiates some of its energy back down to earth – this latter is sometimes termed “back radiation”.

    Unthreaded #19 « Climate Audit 2007

  • It took all of me to hold back the tears when my dad told me to find him and bring him back…

    goldylockz22 Diary Entry goldylockz22 2003

  • My back folds in to ridges, where the water running down my back… carefully bounces and folds into the crevices, reaching an invisible body of flow, up and over the highlights of my skin… created from years of play in the sun…

    ugotsoul Diary Entry ugotsoul 2003

  • Nina needs help to roll from her belly to her back, so they put a circle that goes part way around ‘rolls belly to back’.

    1) Head Control and Use of Senses 1999

  • If we have gone out of the way Jesus will bring us back, _if we want to come back_.

    The Life of Duty, v. 2 A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

  • Nevertheless it was their turning back, or being _sent back_, as it was called, that gave a pretext to the slander that was then started.

    With Rimington L. March Phillipps

  • I have only recently been getting back a little: no, getting _back_ nothing, -- but some new life, out of a new world, I think.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 Various

  • In the next issue he combined some of his smaller departments in the back; and thus, in 1896, he inaugurated the method of “running over into the back” which has now become a recognized principle in the make-up of magazines of larger size.

    Meeting a Reverse or Two 1921

Comments

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  • after, following, imitating

    July 22, 2009