Word.ws English Dictionary

back-formations

back-formations is the plural of back-formation.

Meaning of back-formation

Noun

back-formation (countable and uncountable, plural back-formations)

  1. (uncountable) The process by which a new word is formed from an older word by interpreting the former as a derivative of the latter, often by removing a morpheme (real or perceived) from the older word, such as the verb burgle, formed by removing -ar (perceived as an agent-noun suffix) from burglar.
  2. (countable) A word created in this way.
    • Back-formations, such as tambour (for “play the tambourine”), are a staple of comedic wordplay.
    Synonyms:
    back-form

Questions about back-formations

What is back-formations the plural of?
Back-formations is the plural of back-formation.

Words near back-formations in the dictionary

  1. back-filled
  2. back-filling
  3. back-fills
  4. back-form
  5. back-formation
  6. back-formations
  7. back-formed
  8. back-forming
  9. back-forms
  10. back-friend
  11. back-friends

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back-formations (page history and authors); back-formation (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.

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