Word.ws English Dictionary

backscratch

backscratch noun: a scratch on the back.

Noun

backscratch (plural backscratches)

  1. A scratch on the back.
    • Several Colorado papers have reproduced the substance of our articles on silver, and we thank them for their backscratches.1931, The Mines Magazine, volume 21, page 9
    • Backscratches keep improving but the itch increases.1989, Common Lives, Lesbian Lives, numbers 29-32, page 20

Verb

backscratch (third-person singular simple present backscratches, present participle backscratching, simple past and past participle backscratched)

  1. To scratch one's or another's back.
    • That thought appeared to discompose her greatly, though Jasper made light of it by rapidly back-scratching with his hind legs and giving a short stern bark, just to assure her that strangers would be rushed off the property on sight.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 127
    • He enjoyed being hugged, backscratched, and tickled and sat quietly next to the examiner after testing while a parental interview was conducted.1984, Michael D. Powers, Behavioral Assessment of Severe Developmental Disabilities
  2. (slang) To engage in a reciprocal beneficial action.
    • It was backscratched into existence, cost nearly a billion pounds, and now they are wondering why they let it happen.2003, Ralph Steadman, Doodaaa: The Balletic Art of Gavin Twinge, page 105
    • The fount of social problems, he argues, is that human morality grew out of the natural principles of tit-for-tat and mutual backscratching.2008, Nicholas Fearn, The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions

Examples of backscratch in a sentence

  • I had to admit he had nice fingernails and a backscratch would have felt just fine.2011, Denise Giardina, The Unquiet Earth: A Novel:
  • Series of clotheslines no-sold, so Haku tries backscratches, and, interestingly, that finally works.2013, Ben Undelson, Fiction. A Nostalgic Guide to Growing up with the WWF:
  • So it is to the mutual advantage of social primates to backscratch for each other.1995, Stephen R. Kellert, The Biophilia Hypothesis, page 397:
  • […] primate's inclination to backscratch and delouse rather than venture into the dangerous country beyond familiar tramping grounds.2000, David Michael Jacobs, UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, page 190:

Forms of backscratch

Noun
pluralbackscratches
Verb
third-person singular presentbackscratches
present participlebackscratching
past participlebackscratched
pastbackscratched

Origin of backscratch

From back + scratch.

Questions about backscratch

What does backscratch mean?
Backscratch means a scratch on the back.
How do you use backscratch in a sentence?
I had to admit he had nice fingernails and a backscratch would have felt just fine.
What part of speech is backscratch?
Backscratch can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of backscratch?
The plural of backscratch is backscratches.

Words near backscratch in the dictionary

  1. backscatters
  2. backscattersonde
  3. backscattersondes
  4. backscene
  5. backscenes
  6. backscratch
  7. backscratched
  8. backscratcher
  9. backscratchers
  10. backscratches
  11. backscratching

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: backscratch (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-backscratch.ogg.

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