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Backwards vs Backwoods - What's the difference?

backwards | backwoods |

As adjectives the difference between backwards and backwoods

is that backwards is oriented toward the back while backwoods is pertaining to the backwoods.

As an adverb backwards

is toward the back.

As a noun backwoods is

partly or wholly uncleared forest, especially in North America.

backwards

English

Alternative forms

* backward

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Oriented toward the back.
    • The battleship had three backwards guns at the stern, in addition to the primary complement .
  • Reversed.
    • The backwards lettering on emergency vehicles makes it possible to read in the rear-view mirror.
  • (derogatory) Behind current trends or technology.
    • Modern medicine regards the use of leeches as a backwards practice.
  • Clumsy, inept, or inefficient.
    • He was a very backwards scholar, but he was a marvel on the football field.

    Usage notes

    * In senses 3 and 4, and often in American English, backward is preferred.

    Synonyms

    * (oriented toward the back) * (reversed) mirror image, switched, back to front * (behind current trends or technology) crude, dated, obsolete, primitive * awkward, fumbling, incompetent, poor

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • Toward the back.
    • The cabinet toppled over backwards .
    Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards . —Søren Kierkegaard
  • In the opposite direction to usual.
    • The clock did not work because the battery was inserted backwards .
  • In a manner such that the back precedes the front.
    • The tour guide walked backwards while droning on to the bored seniors.

    Usage notes

    * In written American English, backward is more common. * Strictly speaking, backwards'' is an adverb and ''backward is an adjective in British English; in American English, the rule may be reversed. This follows the same usage for similar words ending in -ward/-wards and -way/-ways. See also -wise. *: It was a backward move'' vs ''He moved backwards * Also, even though an adverb may be used in adjectival combinations (eg a quickly moving car ), only the -ward forms are commonly used in adjectival combinations, e.g.: *: A backward-facing statue. / A backward facing statue.

    Synonyms

    * (toward the back) hindwards, rearward, retrograde * (in the opposite direction of usual) contrariwise, reversedly * (so that the back precedes the front) back to front, in reverse

    Derived terms

    * backwards and forwards

    Anagrams

    *

    backwoods

    English

    Noun

    (en-plural noun)
  • Partly or wholly uncleared forest, especially in North America.
  • A remote or sparsely inhabited region, especially in North America; away from big towns and from the influence of modern life.
  • *1834 , (w), A Narrative of the Life of , Nebraska 1987, p.22:
  • *:about that time, you mayreckon, if like me you belong to the back-woods , that I began to make up my acquaintance with hard times, and a plenty of them.
  • *
  • *:It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

    • Adjective

    (-)
  • Pertaining to the backwoods.
  • Rough, uncouth, coarse, or crude in social matters.

    • Synonyms

    * backwood

    References

    *

    Derived terms

    * backwoodsman