[partly attributive use of BACK sb.1 as in back wall = wall at the back; partly elliptical use of BACK adv., as in back rent (cf. ‘to be back with his rent’), back years (cf. ‘for years back’); by no means distinctly separated from BACK- in comb.; cf. senses 1 and 2, with BACK-, 4, 5.]
I. From the sb.
1. Situated behind or in the rear, or away from the front. Hence, a. sometimes with the inferred sense of ‘distant, outlying, remote,’ as in back settlement, country; b. often with that of ‘inferior, mean, obscure,’ as in back slum.
c. 1490. Adam Bel, 121, in Ritson’s Anc. P. P., 10. William opened hys backe wyndow That was in hys chambre on hye.
1535. Coverdale, Ex. xxxiii. 23. Thou shalt se my back partes, but my face shal not be sene.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut., 58. When there is still some backe nooke behinde.
1683. Ray, Corr. (1848), 134. A small flat back claw, or toe.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3885/4. Lost … out of a back Shead, 4 peices of Crape.
1806. W. Taylor, Ann. Rev., IV. 886. The Ohio should … have been made the back line of boundary.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, vii. (1884), 65. A little morocco box, which … contained the Major’s back teeth.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 3. A stilted plover with no back toe.
Mod. The occupants of the back seats.
a. 1681. Penn, Acc. Pennsylv., Wks. 1782, IV. 301. The back-lands being … richer, than those that lie by navigable rivers.
1759. Franklin, Ess., Wks. 1840, III. 420. To fall on the back settlements of Pennsylvania.
1783. Gouv. Morris, in Sparks, Life & Writ. (1832), I. 248. The back lands are as important in the eyes of some, as the fisheries.
1798. Malthus, Popul. (1817), I. 7. In the back settlements, where the sole employment is agriculture.
1882. Macm. Mag., XLVI. 70/2. Driven … into the backest of the back country.
b. 1860. Dickens, Uncomm. Trav., x. (1866), 67/2. A back street in the neighbourhood of Walworth.
1865. Athenæum, 28 Jan., 124/1. Imprisoned in the back slums of Westminster.
¶ In this sense formerly compared BACKER, BACKERMOST, BACKMOST. Only the last is now in ordinary use.
2. Used to distinguish that one of two things (or sets of things) which lies behind the main or front one, and is more or less subsidiary to it. In this case it is more usual to use the hyphen: see BACK- 5.
1535. Coverdale, 1 Kings vii. 8. Ye back courte made betwene ye house and the porche.
1592. Greene, Conny-catch. (1881), 59. The gentlewoman … brought him into a backe roome.
1713. Guardian, No. 85. The young poets are in the back room.
1768. Sterne, Sent. Journ. (Rtldg.), 319. Coming unexpectedly from a back parlour into the shop.
1812. T. Hall, in Examiner, 31 Aug., 551/2. Which he traced to the back kitchen.
1863. Kingsley, Water Bab., i. 21. The back staircase from the Taj-mahal at Agra.
II. From the adv.
3. In arrear, overdue; behindhand.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. ccvii. [cciii.] 639. To fynde syluer to mayntayne it withall, he founde out subtelly a backe tayle.
1841. S. Warren, Ten Thous. a Year, II. v. (Hoppe). Whether you have come to any arrangement with your late opponent concerning the back-rents.
† 4. That holds one back. Obs. rare.
1627. Feltham, Resolves (1647), 66. Take away from him those back feares, that would speak him still to be fragile man.
† 5. Turning or looking backward. Obs. rare.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., in Farr’s S. P., 197. The false back Tartars … in flying ranks, Oft backward turn.
6. Coming back, returning.
1868. B. Lossing, The Hudson, 145. They generally descend the river at the close of May, when they are called Back Shad.
7. Turned back, reversed, as in back current, back smoke; spelt backward, as in back slang.
1857. J. Wilson, Chr. North, I. 137. That mysterious and infernal sort, called back-smoke.
1859. Sat. Rev., 6 Aug., 166/2. The Back Slang merely consists in inverting words—thus a house is in Slang a crib, in Back Slang a birk; doog is good; a dunop a pound; and eno one.
