Word.ws English Dictionary

backveld

backveld noun: backward and unsophisticated rural areas.

Noun

backveld (plural backvelds)

  1. (Africa, Southern) Backward and unsophisticated rural areas.
    • And how was she to know that one may live in London, or New York, a village in Yorkshire, or a dorp in the backveld […] but one behaves inevitably, inexorably, exactly like everyone else.1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 232
    • If it hadn't been for Susan he might have ended his life in some small, forgotten backveld village, quietly content to teach a bit of history and geography to one generation of school children after the other […].1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 20

Forms of backveld

pluralbackvelds

Origin of backveld

From back + veld.

Words formed from backveld

Questions about backveld

What does backveld mean?
Backveld means backward and unsophisticated rural areas.
What part of speech is backveld?
Backveld is a noun.
What is the plural of backveld?
The plural of backveld is backvelds.

Words near backveld in the dictionary

  1. Backus
  2. Backus normal form
  3. Backus-Naur form
  4. Backus-Naur forms
  5. Backuses
  6. backveld
  7. backvelder
  8. backvelders
  9. backvelds
  10. backwall
  11. backwalls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: backveld (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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