Word.ws English Dictionary

back-

back- prefix: back in its adverbial senses.

Prefix

back-

  1. Back in its adverbial senses.
  2. Situated, located, or toward the rear; backward or in reverse; in return; again.
  3. (UK, obsolete) False; pseudo-.
    • backfriend

Origin of back-

From Middle English bak-, bac-, apheretic form of abak, aback (“aback”, adverb). See also aback.

Questions about back-

What does back- mean?
Back- means back in its adverbial senses.
What part of speech is back-?
Back- is a prefix.

Words near back- in the dictionary

  1. back yard
  2. back yards
  3. back, crack and sack
  4. back, crack and sacks
  5. back, sack and crack
  6. back-
  7. back-alley
  8. back-and-forth
  9. back-and-forthing
  10. back-and-forths
  11. back-annotate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back- (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “back-.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/back-. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.