backwater

Etymology

It is formed from English back + water, with back as an adjective or adverb,^[2][3][4] first as Middle English bakwater.^[4][5][2] The verb, to row backwards, comes from the verb phrase back water;^[2][4] its figurative senses are from the noun.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Water flowing in from behind: before 1387, in John Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon,^[2][6] a sense that was obsolete by 1587.^[2] Etymonline gives "water behind a dam", late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1629 the word meant water held back in a swollen or blocked river or mill-race, or spread from it into shallow lagoons,^[2][4] and after 1788 also water dammed back on purpose.^[2] By the 19th century it was also the still water beside a river, fed from it by a backflow;^[2][3] the OED's first quotation for this is from Kingsley's Water-Babies (1863).^[2] The figurative sense, a place or situation where nothing develops or happens, is recorded from 1820 in the OED;^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1879.^[3] The adjective, secluded or provincial, followed in 1895, in Kenneth Grahame.^[2] Sailors used it for a coastal creek cut off from the sea by a narrow strip of land (1867), and for the swell thrown back by a steamer's paddles (1838, in Poe).^[2] In Scots and northern dialect a backwater was the overflow of a mill-race that held back the mill-wheel, in the Lake District someone in financial difficulties, and in a Scots poem of 1793, tears.^[7] The verb, to row or paddle backwards, dates from 1808 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged^[4] and 1828 in the OED;^[2] it later also meant to back down from a position one has taken.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1387 – water flowing in from behind (obsolete by 1587).^[2]
• 1629 – water dammed back in a swollen or obstructed river.^[2][4]
• 1788 – water held back artificially by a dam.^[2]
• 1808 – verb, to row or paddle backwards.^[4] The OED's first record is from 1828.^[2]
• 1820 – figurative, a place or situation without progress.^[2]
• 1830 – a backward current of water.^[2]
• 1838 – the swell thrown back by a steamboat's paddles.^[2]
• 1863 – still water beside a river, fed from it by a backflow.^[2]
• 1867 – a creek running parallel to the coast behind a narrow strip of land.^[2]
• 1885 – verb, to bring into a backwater, figuratively.^[2]
• 1895 – adjective, secluded, provincial.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Water held or turned back by a dam, an obstruction, an opposing current or the tide.^[4][8][2]
2. A body of still water formed in this way, or lying off the main current of a river and fed by a side channel.^[4][8][2]
3. An isolated or backward place or condition, where little changes: The village was a sleepy backwater until the railway came.^[4][8][2]
4. An unimportant or unfashionable field of study or business.^[9][4]

Verb

1. To push the oar or paddle forward so as to stop a boat or move it backwards.^[4][8][2]
2. To retreat from a position one has taken; to back down.^[4]

Related words

• back
• water
• backwash

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster