ˈset-back
[f. vbl. phr. set back: see set v.1 141.]
1. fig. A check to progress, a retardation or retrograde movement, a relapse, reverse.
| 1674 J. Flavel Husb. Spirit. i. 20 Even when he is about his work, how many set-backs doth he meet with! 1883 Century Mag. July 431 Yet, in the face of all set-backs, the city [New Orleans] that once was almost annually scourged, has, in the twenty-seven years since the great epidemic,..suffered but one mild and three severe epidemics. 1895 Daily News 25 Sept. 2/5 Operators are..sore at this sudden set-back, when the boom appeared to be resuming its course on a sounder basis. 1899 Ibid. 1 Mar. 5/4 It is now feared that a set-back in the patient's present weakened condition may result in collapse. |
2. a. Arch. A plain, flat set-off in a wall.
| 1864 Webster (citing Weale). 1887 Arch. Publ. Soc. Dict., Set-off; or set-back, or offset. |
b. N. Amer. The setting back or recessing of a building from the edge of a roadway (as an element of environmental planning); the limit of this withdrawal or the open area created.
| 1916 Ann. Rep. Planning Board of Brookline, Mass., 1915 5 Disregard of the customary setback which has hitherto maintained a margin of cheerful green. 1923 Stud. Building Height Limitations (Zoning Comm. Chicago Real Estate Board) 163, I would like to ask in the case of a narrow street whether it would be automatically widened by the establishment of a fixed set⁓back. 1937 Sun (Baltimore) 30 Sept. 24/2 Claiming the building of a stone wall along a lot boundary on Wendover road ‘is in total disregard of the theory of setbacks and open spaces in Guildford’. 1947 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 13 Sept. 2/1 (heading) Staples approves rural setbacks. 1961 L. Mumford City in Hist. Note to plate 51, The architect is freed from arbitrarily uniform prescriptions as to garden allotments, setbacks from roads and obsolete street patterns. 1975 Canadian Antiques Collector Mar.–Apr. 27/1 One fence encloses a typical store and defines a deep setback for a distinctive house. |
c. N. Amer. A feature of the design of a skyscraper by which higher storeys are successively set back a certain distance behind the line of lower storeys, leaving a horizontal area in front; the horizontal area so formed.
| 1923 Stud. Building Height Limitations (Zoning Comm. Chicago Real Estate Board) 23 Additional Heights of Buildings should be allowed, provided proper set-backs are required for such additional stories. 1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 12 Jan. 3/6 It [sc. a proposed skyscraper] is to be of the type recently developed..with a reduction of area, or a ‘set back’ from the street line above the tenth floor and similar reductions taking place at intervals thereafter. 1934 Sun (Baltimore) 16 May 2/1 Former Governor Alfred E. Smith..announced that on June 1 the club would open a new terrace cafe on one of the setbacks of the Empire State Building. 1945 Washington Post 17 Aug. 1/8 His body cleared more than 100 feet of building setbacks in the seven tiers of parapets designed as obstacles to suicide plunges. 1964 ‘J. H. Roberts’ Q Document i. 12 The fa{cced}ade of the building was deceptive, with sculpted indentations and setbacks. 1977 Guardian Weekly 6 Nov. 18/4 One of the victims is hurled through a closed window, his body coming to rest on a setback seven floors below. |
3. A setting back or backward; a thrown-back set (of the shoulders), a backward set (of a golf-club).
| 1900 M. E. Wilkins Parson Lord, etc. 188 The old Beau..had a military set-back to his shoulders. 1900 Westm. Gaz. 10 Nov. 2/1 The angle..which gives the club the necessary set-back and resulting loft. |
4. U.S. = back-set n. 2.
| In recent Dicts. |
5. attrib., as (sense 2 b) setback line, set-back space; set-back hinges, hinges for setting back window-shutters.
| 1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. 269 The hinges used should be what are called set-back hinges, when it is wished to make the shutters fit close to the windows when shut, and to throw them back close to the wall when open. 1917 Establishment of Setbacks (City of N.Y. Comm. on City Plan) 4 The set-back line secures on certain streets a uniform set-back of buildings from the street line. 1948 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 4 Nov. 1/4 An agreement..to permit the super market..to stay four feet inside the prescribed ten-foot setback line. Ibid., If and when the city needs the full ten-foot setback space to widen Preston Avenue, [etc.]. |