Backward vs Reticent - What's the difference?
backward | reticent | Synonyms |
(of motion) Pertaining to the direction towards the back.
(of motion) Pertaining to the direction reverse of normal.
Reluctant or unable to advance.
* 1919 ,
* Don't be backward in suggesting story ideas to local media but always think of the wants, needs and desires of their readers when selling-in story ideas.[http://www.mortgagemagazine.com.au/detail_article.cfm?articleID=364]
Of a culture considered undeveloped or unsophisticated.
* Most cruelly, the immediate security interests of the United States and the states surrounding Somalia are now to keep it a failed state, to prevent Islamists from consolidating even a weak state centered on Mogadishu. The leader of the victorious faction, one Aden Hashi 'Ayro, is said to be a veteran of Afghanistan; he knows well what a small sanctuary in a backward corner of the globe can mean for al Qaeda. [http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1851044]
Pertaining to a thought or value that is considered outdated.
* Replace the morbid, bankrupting, backward idea of superpower domination: Weapons dismantled. Global warming reversed. Perhaps, in time, overpopulation, poverty, starvation, ignorance and disease all resolved. Thus, moral determination combined with 21st Century science, ecology and social initiatives will make possible a resonant fulfillment of our American Revolution [http://www.counterpunch.org/bice01042003.html]
(cricket) On that part of the field behind the batsman's popping crease.
(cricket) Further behind the batsman's popping crease than something else.
(obsolete) Unwilling; averse; reluctant.
* Alexander Pope
Slow to apprehend; having difficulties in learning.
Late or behindhand.
(obsolete) Already past or gone; bygone.
* Byron
(of motion) In the direction towards the back; backwards
Toward, or in, past time or events; ago.
* John Locke
By way of reflection; reflexively.
From a better to a worse state, as from honor to shame, from religion to sin.
* Dryden
The state behind or past.
* Shakespeare
Keeping one's thoughts and opinions to oneself; reserved or restrained.
* 1856 , :
* 1870 , , ch XXIII:
* 1891 , , ch LIV:
* 1915 , , ch 3:
* 1922 , :
* 1922 , , ch XXV:
Backward is a synonym of reticent.
As adjectives the difference between backward and reticent
is that backward is (of motion) pertaining to the direction towards the back while reticent is reluctant; reticent.As an adverb backward
is (of motion) in the direction towards the back; backwards.As a noun backward
is the state behind or past.backward
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- They left without a backward glance.
- The occasional backward movement of planets is evidence they revolve around the sun.
- Then her eyes, always alert for the affairs of her kitchen, fell on some action of the Chinese cook which aroused her violent disapproval. She turned on him with a torrent of abuse. The Chink was not backward to defend himself, and a very lively quarrel ensued.
- For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves.
- a backward child
- a backward season
- and flies unconscious o'er each backward year
Synonyms
* (in reverse direction) retrograde * (of an undeveloped culture) third world * backwards, fogyish, old-fashioned, antiquated, antediluvian, unprogressive, retrograde, outdated, parachronistic, out of dateAntonyms
* (of an undeveloped culture) forward * (of an outdated thought) progressiveAdverb
(en adverb)- to walk or ride backward'''; to throw the arms '''backward
- some reigns backward
- The work went backward .
Synonyms
* backwardsAntonyms
* forward, forwardsNoun
- In the dark backward and abysm of time.
Anagrams
*reticent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- They are slow and reticent , and are like a dull good horse which lets every nag pass him, but with whip and spur will run down every racer in the field.
- But he was a reticent as well as an eccentric man; and he made no mention of a certain evening when he warmed his hands at the gatehouse fire, and looked steadily down upon a certain heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor.
- She had told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott and inquire for it.
- The milkman had been released, I read, and the true criminal, about whose identity the police were reticent , was believed to have got away from London by one of the northern lines.
- The inhabitants of that street impressed me peculiarly; At first I thought it was because they were all silent and reticent ; but later decided it was because they were all very old.
- But they were not reticent enough to prevent the circulation of certain uneasy rumours and extravagant stories of discreditable adventures.