back-water

as inslow

Synonyms for back-water

verb delay, restrict

Antonyms for back-water

Word Origin & History

Old English bæc "back," from Proto-Germanic *bakam (cf. Old Saxon and Middle Dutch bak, Old Frisian bek), with no known connections outside Germanic.

The cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense in other modern Germanic languages by words akin to Modern English ridge (cf. Danish ryg, German Rücken). Many Indo-European languages show signs of once having distinguished the horizontal back of an animal (or a mountain range) from the upright back of a human. In other cases, a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to "spine" (Italian schiena, Russian spina) or "shoulder, shoulder blade" (Spanish espalda, Polish plecy).

To turn (one's) back on (someone or something) "ignore" is from early 14c. Behind (someone's) back "clandestinely" is from late 14c.

To know (something) like the back of one's hand, implying familiarity, is first attested 1893. The first attested use of the phrase is from a dismissive speech made to a character in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Catriona":

The story, a sequel to "Kidnapped," has a Scottish setting and context, and the back of my hand to you was noted in the late 19th century as a Scottish expression meaning "I will have nothing to do with you" [e.g. "Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language"]. In English generally, the back of (one's) hand has been used to imply contempt and rejection since at least 1300. Perhaps the connection of a menacing dismissal is what made Stevenson choose that particular anatomical reference.

Example Sentences for back-water

The cleansing and clearing a harbour by back-water, or otherwise.

They had reached the counter current—the back-water—and were satisfied.

The last rip of the tide is through the Straits of Carquinez into the back-water of Suisun.

There could never be any life equal to the old life, in the back-water into which she had drifted.

He'll swamp you with cracked ice and back-water if you don't get out of the way.

With a desperate masterfulness he swept her from their back-water solitude out into the full current.

The brush grew high around the pond formed by the back-water and made a perfect shelter.

I could now find vent for my “back-water,” since the empty cask would serve for that, in one case as well as the other.

This back-water is a dangerous place to break down in, as the men on the Road know well.

From there he drifted to the old "Amberson Block," but this was fallen into a back-water; business had stagnated here.

back-water

Synonyms for back-water

Antonyms for back-water

slowed

slowing

back-water

Synonyms for back-water

Antonyms for back-water

More words related to back-water

slow

slowed

slowing