BACKWARD • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Backward

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/bˈækwərd/ Listen

adjective

Backward adj.

1.

Directed to the back or rear; as, backward glances.

2.

Unwilling; averse; reluctant; hesitating; loath. "For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves."

3.

Not well advanced in learning; not quick of apprehension; dull; inapt; as, a backward child. "The backward learner."

4.

Late or behindhand; as, a backward season.

5.

Not advanced in civilization; undeveloped; as, the country or region is in a backward state.

6.

Already past or gone; bygone. (R.) "And flies unconscious o'er each backward year."

adverb

Backwards, Backward adv.

1.

With the back in advance or foremost; as, to ride backward.

2.

Toward the back; toward the rear; as, to throw the arms backward.

3.

On the back, or with the back downward. "Thou wilt fall backward."

4.

Toward, or in, past time or events; ago. "Some reigns backward."

5.

By way of reflection; reflexively.

6.

From a better to a worse state, as from honor to shame, from religion to sin. "The work went backward."

7.

In a contrary or reverse manner, way, or direction; contrarily; as, to read backwards. "We might have... beat them backward home."

noun

Backward n. The state behind or past. (Obs.) "In the dark backward and abysm of time."

verb

Backward v. t. To keep back; to hinder. (Obs.)

See images of 'Backward'

Etymology of 'Backward'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books

... place; but there was another change. Little by little, her eyes recovered their natural living expression—then slowly closed. She tottered backward from the table, and lifted her hands wildly, as if to grasp at something which might support her. Mr. Rayburn hurried to her before she fell—lifted her in his arms—and carried ...

— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... to lay about her, with her whip, in a way that proved extremely unpleasant. Wolf-in-the-Temple, against whom her assault was especially directed, received some bad cuts across his face, and Ironbeard was driven backward into the ford, where he fell, full length, and rose dripping wet and mortified. Thore the Hound got a thump in his head from Gunbjor's stalwart elbows, and Skull-Splitter, who had more courage than discretion, was pitched into the water with no more ceremony than if he had ...

— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... are going to catch it," whispered Grace, as she began stepping backward toward her place, which she did not quite reach. She sat down on Hazel instead, raising a titter among the girls near by who had witnessed the mishap. But the interruption was brief. The girls were too much interested in what was ...

— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... But Marcy, beside being a sturdy fellow, knew how to stand up for his rights. He braced his foot firmly against the curbstone and met the shock of the collision so vigorously that those who would have sent him headlong into the street were sent backward themselves, and came very near going head first down the stairs that led ...

— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... men. The chain of links which once bound stage to stage of human history is somewhere for ever broken; and as we retrace, in the memory of the race or in that of individual, the Ariadne-clue which we here call 'the unity of History' it vanishes somewhere beyond our vision into the dark backward and abysm of time. True, of late Archaeology and Anthropology have cast their search-lights into the darkness, piercing a little deeper than of old into the mists that surround the origins of our civilization; but before that dimly illuminated region of pre-history there ...

— The Unity of Civilization • Various

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