backwater

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

As private credit ascended from a Wall Street backwater to a booming market, the industry found the nation’s insurance companies to be a ready source of capital.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026

Once viewed as an intellectual backwater, geroscience—the study of aging—is now at the frontier of biology, attracting funding and talent, inspiring new journals, and generating a flood of peer-reviewed research.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 27, 2025

The exact coordinates of this backwater are a bit hazy, but Storyteller 2 helpfully pinpoints the locale as “a place where being from somewhere is who you are.”

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2025

Decades of investment in infrastructure and training have taken China from a sporting backwater to a medal-winning machine that recently equalled the United States with 40 golds at the Paris Olympics.

From BBC • Mar. 26, 2025

Historiographic conceits aside, Polybius was born in Arcadia, notorious throughout antiquity as an irredeemable backwater.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro