backwards, adv. (and a.)
(ˈbækwədz)
Also 6 bacwardes, Sc. bacwartis.
[f. backward with advb. genitive -s; cf. OE. hámweardes: see -wards.]
A. adv. = backward adv. in its various senses. to bend or lean over backwards(s) (fig.), to go to the opposite extreme (in order to avoid a possible bias, etc.); to go almost too far in the effort to overcome one's ‘inclination’. colloq. (orig. U.S.). Also in colloq. phr. to know (something) backwards, to know (it) extremely well or ‘inside out’ (inside n. 4); to be very familiar with (it).
| 1513 Douglas æneis viii. ii. 46 The streme bacwartis vp, flawis soft and styll. 1535 Coverdale John xviii. 6 They wente bacwardes and fell to the grounde. 1606 Sir G. Goosecappe i. iv. in Old Pl. (1884) III. 25, I will preferre thee backwards (as many friends do) and leave their friends woorse then they found them. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. i. 2 The joynts of his hinder legs..bend backwards. 1704 Steele Lying Lover iv. (1747) 60 She lies backwards, and you can't so much as see her Chamber Window. 1708 Lond. Gaz. No. 4432/6 [They] went into the same Coach, the Bride sitting backwards. 1715 Ibid. No. 5323/1 To ply forwards and backwards..on the Coasts of Calabria. 1716 Ibid. No. 5446/9 A house..with the Gardens..and four small Tenements backwards. 1771 J. S. Le Dran's Obs. Surg. (ed. 4) 164 The Patient being pressed to go backwards, went behind his Tent. 1833 Regul. Instr. Cavalry i. 24 At the words On the Right, backwards Wheel, the man on the right of the rank faces to his left. 1858 W. Irving Washington V. 68 He walked me backwards and forwards..for half an hour. 1872 Freeman Norm. Conq. IV. xx. 456 Brihtric having been translated backwards to the less important Abbey of Burton. 1904 G. V. Hobart Jim Hickey ii. 32 The chief clerk..knew the hotel business backwards. 1925 Nation (N.Y.) 13 May 537 Stambuliski leaned over backwards in his desire to satisfy Serbian demands. 1933 E. O'Neill Ah, Wilderness! iii. ii. 112, I know this game backwards. 1936 A. Thirkell August Folly viii. 255 If you did get ill..I know the part backwards, and I've been to all the rehearsals. 1937 Amer. Speech XII. 167 He is being hypercorrect, leaning over backward to be correct. 1949 L. M. Edwards Sauce for Geese: Story of Nebraska Farm 12 We all but bent over backward trying to impress everyone with the fact that tempus was fugiting. 1952 Economist 29 Nov. 612/1 [Broadmindedness] may..be carried beyond the optimum of impartiality to that point of unfairness to one's own case which Americans call ‘leaning over backward’. 1952 M. McCarthy Groves of Academe (1953) vi. 119 A liberal college ought to lean over backward not to fire anybody who is suspected of Communism. 1953 J. Cary Except the Lord xliii. 195, I had provoked in him that conscience, those scruples of justice and right, which might cause him actually to favour my enemy—to, as our transatlantic friends say, lean over backwards in obliging him. 1954 J. Grenfell in Turn back Clock (1983) 102 You know it absolutely backwards, so be quiet. 1974 Economist 16 Feb. 35 He knows the constituency backwards. 1983 Financial Times 17 Sept. 16/5 An eclectic collector.., he knows the showrooms backwards. |
† B. adj. = backward a. Obs. rare.
| 1627 Bp. Cosin Corr. (1869) I. 119 Slack or backwards in doing his..dutie. 1683 Cave Ecclesiastici 481 Nor were..his Party backwards to blow up the Coals. |