Backs

How to spell backs

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce backs

What does backs mean?

1. verbGives support to a person, plan, or cause; or moves something in a rearward direction.
2. nounMore than one rear surface of a body, object, or page.

Backs in a sentence

• verb

  The whole committee backs the new budget proposal.

• noun

  The new office chairs have firm lumbar backs for posture.

• verb

  She carefully backs the van into the loading bay.

• noun

  Years of heavy lifting strained the workers' backs.

Where does backs come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word comes from the Old English bæc, which simply meant the rear surface of the human body or of any object, and it has close cousins in Old Norse and Old Saxon. From those Germanic roots English kept both the literal body sense and a host of figurative ones: the back of a room, the back of a chair, and the idea of standing behind someone in support. The verb sense, meaning to support or to move rearwards, grew naturally out of the noun and was well established by the 1500s. The form 'backs' is just that ancient word with the ordinary -s ending, marking either more than one back or the present-tense action of one person. Because the spelling has stayed almost unchanged for over a thousand years, the only thing to remember is the hard -ck before the -s, with no silent or doubled trap hidden inside.

How the word is built

• back (Old English bæc: the rear of the body)
• -s (plural noun marker or third-person singular verb ending)