back stream (bakstrem)

A current running against the regular course of the stream; back-string (bak's tring), n. A leading-string by which a child is supported or guided from behind. The back - string and the bib. Cowper , Task, iv. 228. back-stroke (bak's trōk), n . 1. A blow or stroke in return.-2. A backhanded stroke; a back-hander. My uncle Toby never took this back - stroke of my father's at his hobby-horse kindly. 6. In time past; ago. Some reigns backward. 7. In an opposite or contrary direction. Locke. IMG:content-1531.png:[blocks in formation] C. E. Norton, Travel and Study in Italy, p. 47. 9. From a better to a worse state; retrogre ively. The work went backward ; and the more he strove T' advance the suit, the farther from her love. Dryden . Backward and forward, to and fro. - To ring bells backward, to give an alarm by ringing the bells of a chime in the wrong order, beginning with the ba bell. The bells they ring backward , the drums they are beat. Scott , Bonnie Dundee. backward (back'wärd), a. [ And now they do re-stem Their backward course. Shak ., Othello, i. 3. 3. Done in reverse order; done in an order contrary to the natural order, as in repeating a sentence from the end to the beginning. Without his rod reversed, And backward mutters of di evering power, We cannot free the lady. Milton , Comus, 1. 817. 4. Being in, or placed at, the back. Four legs and two voices. His forward voice now Bacon i an wardne of the spring. (b) Unwillingne ; reluctance; dilatorine or dullne in action. Bp . Atterbury . Our backwardne to good works. (c) Bashfulne ; shyne . backwards, adv . See backward . back-washed (bak'wosht), a. Cleansed from oil, as wool after combing. back-water (bak'water), n . 11. Water flowing in from behind.-2. Water thrown back by the turning of a water-wheel or the paddles of steamboats, etc.-3. Water held or forced back, as in a mill-race or in a tributary stream, in consequence of some obstruction, as a dam or flood.-4. An artificial accumulation of water obtained at high tide and reserved in reservoirs, to be discharged at low tide for clearing off deposits in channel-beds and tideways.-5. A creek or arm of the sea which runs parallel to the coast, having only a narrow slip of land between it and the sea, and communicating with the latter by barred entrances. Entering the mouth of the Moredab, an extensive back water into which fall the Piri-Bazaar and other streams, we come alongside a fairly constructed quay. O'Donovan, Merv, viii. backwood (bak'wud), n. That portion of a carpenter's plane which is immediately behind the plane-iron. To drive the backwood up, to drive the wedge of a plane too tightly. When this is done the pre ure of the plane-iron raises a bur or slight ridge at the angle of the mouth and sole. backwoods (bak'wudz'), n. pl. Wooded or par tially uncleared and unsettled districts in the remote parts of a new country; hence, in the United States and Canada, any rough or thinly settled region far from the centers of popu The very ease with which books containing the world's best literature were obtainable in the backwoods made our early writers copyists. Stedman , Poets of America, p. 14. He [Count Tolstoi] put into my hands a letter from some man living in a village in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. The Century , XXXIV. 261. backwoodsman (bak'wudz'man), n.; pl. back woodsmen (-men). An inhabitant of the backwoods. The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest among mortals anywhere. Byron, Don Juan, viii. 61.