Definitions

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

  • noun firefighting, chiefly UK Alternative spelling of backdraft.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Petrol fumes were filling the interior, and backdraught bringing them in through gaps in the torn bodywork: the tank had been split at some time when the rear had struck obstacles.

    The Striker Portfolio Hall, Adam 1968

  • The father was a serious man, but if anybody set him off laughing he began with a gurgling, then came longer but broken trills until they flowed together in one roar, after which came wave upon wave with an ever-increasing backdraught.

    Chapter X 1917

  • When he writes of "the scream of the maddened beach," he uses the pathetic fallacy; but his science is quite correct, for the swift whirling of myriads of pebbles does produce a clear shrill note as the backdraught streams from the shore.

    Side Lights James Runciman 1871

  • It is awkward to reconcile this soft-spoken striker, holding forth so earnestly about his happiness at Meadow Lane, with the gaunt figure who, in the summer of 2007, emerged nervously from Staffordshire's Featherstone Prison into a backdraught of public loathing.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

  • It is awkward to reconcile this soft-spoken striker, holding forth so earnestly about his happiness at Meadow Lane, with the gaunt figure who, in the summer of 2007, emerged nervously from Staffordshire's Featherstone Prison into a backdraught of public loathing.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

  • Tesco, it's far more difficult to maintain growth momentum when you're already the biggest operator in the market, your competitors are snapping at your heals as they race up the backdraught, and the easy inflationary fillip is long gone

    For Tesco, It's Tough at the Top - The Source - WSJ 2010

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