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Backward   /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.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books



... Squinty, looking up at the farmer with his comical eyes, one half shut and the other wide open. "Ugh! Ugh!" And with his odd eyes, and one ear cocked forward, and the other flopping over backward, Squinty looked so funny that the farmer had to laugh ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... knees; he fell back against the hand-rail, which was just high enough for him to sit on. lit was what, for one ridiculous moment, he seemed to be doing. The next, his booted feet swayed up and he fell over backward, amid the confusion of splashing water that leaped down the main-deck. Conroy heard him strike something below ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... I would not think it was fun to trip a lame boy up. I would not think it fun to see him splash down backward into a pool, and when he soused under and wet his lame back ice-cold, I ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... and he remembered a day when his sister, who was recovering from a severe attack of fever, was first allowed to go out into the open air. She had gone out, clinging to his arm into the peristyle of his father's house; as he walked backward and forwards with poor, weary, abandoned Sirona, his neglected figure seemed by degrees to assume the noble aspect of a high-born Greek; and instead of the rough, rocky soil, he felt as if he were treading the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and whom, by their unprecedented bounty, they had made what he was. At these words Cromwell put on his hat, and, springing from his place, exclaimed, "Come, come, sir, I will put an end to your prating." For a few seconds, apparently in the most violent agitation, he paced forward and backward, and then, stamping on the floor, added, "You are no parliament. I say you are no parliament: bring them in, bring them in." Instantly the door opened, and Colonel Worseley entered, followed by more than ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc


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