back – English noun declension

English noun forms of back

Noun: back
Singularback
Pluralbacks

Sample Sentences

  • Could you please scratch my back?
  • 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. [1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:]
  • I hurt my back lifting those crates.
  • Take the average black man and ask him that.
  • She gotta pack much back. [1992, “Baby Got Back”, Sir Mix-A-Lot (lyrics):]
  • He got his hand on her behind and caressed her firm, ample flesh.[…]“You got some back on you, girl.” [2002, George Pelecanos, Right as Rain: A Novel, →ISBN, page 123:]
  • Back so big, look like your jeans shrunk in the wash / And we don't really need Netflix, I'mma give you something to watch [2016 February 14, Joseph Adenuga, Darren Dixon, Tariq Devega, “Ladies Hit Squad” (track 6), in Konnichiwa, performed by Skepta ft. D Double E and ASAP Nast, Boy Better Know:]
  • I still need to finish the back of your dress.
  • Can you fix the back of this chair?
  • Do thou but think / What ’tis to cram a maw or clothe a back / From such a filthy vice [1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure:]
  • He sat in the back of the room.
  • Turn the book over and look at the back.
  • The titles are printed on the backs of the books.
  • Convenience and custom have familiarised us to the printed page being a little higher than the middle of the leaf, and to its having a little more margin at the fore edge than in the back. [1841, William Savage, A Dictionary of the Art of Printing, Ayer Publishing, published 1965, →ISBN, page 472:]
  • Tap it with the back of your knife.
  • I hung the clothes on the back of the door.
  • We’ll meet out in the back of the library.
  • Are you sure you're totally out of hair gel? Could you please check in the back?
  • The car was near the back of the train.
  • The backs were lined up in an I formation.
  • […]Rovers were also aided by some poor defending from West Brom, whose lapses at the back undid their excellent work on the ball and condemned Roberto di Matteo's Baggies side to a third straight defeat. [2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1-3 Blackburn”, in BBC:]
  • The small boat raced over the backs of the waves.
  • This project / Should have a back or second, that might hold, / If this should blast in proof. [c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]:]
  • The ship’s back broke in the pounding surf.
  • The stope is kept full of broken ore, sufficient only being drawn to leave a working space between the floor of broken ore and the back of the stope. [1911, Robert Bruce Brinsmade, Mining Without Timber, page 161:]
  • Put some back into it!
  • Could I get a martini with a water back?
  • […]as delivered by a tanner the average weight of a back and two strips would be about 42 pounds[…]. [1848, Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Maine Reports, volume 6, page 397:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-der.?
3. Proto-Germanic *baką
4. Proto-West Germanic *bak
5. Old English bæc
6. Middle English bak
7. English back
8. From Middle English bak, from Old English bæc, from Proto-West Germanic *bak, from Proto-Germanic *baką, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to bend”). The adverb represents an aphetic form of aback.
9. Compare Middle Low German bak (“back”), from Old Saxon bak, and West Frisian bekling (“chair back”), Old High German bah, Swedish and Norwegian bak. Cognate with German Bache (“sow [adult female hog]”). See: Middle English Nouns 'bak', Old English Nouns 'bæc', German Nouns 'Bache'.

Verbs referencing "back"

Swedish Nouns back, Danish Nouns bag, Swedish Nouns bak, Czech Nouns bek.