back matter
1
6.0
- noun
- /bæk ˈmætər/
- Specialized
:
material complementario
- In the back matter, Nelson describes his own less-than-stellar academic experiences with history and how he came to fall in love with it over the course of his own painting projects.
Examples
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Personally, I find the text distinguished in all elements pertinent to it, but especially the interpretation of theme, the appropriateness of style (especially for the expository passages written in second person), and the thorough back matter.
Blog text (12) -
Recently I've been trying to get them to adjust their location number so they finish when the story ends, rather than finish when the back matter ends.
Blog text (26) -
O'Connor's humor, which frequently comes through in his text, really shines in the back matter.
Blog text (12) -
Thanks, Joe, that would be great—and I agree about the placement in relation to the back matter.
Blog text (26) -
The curators also included useful back matter: biographies of makers; lists of important schools, galleries, and exhibitions; and a bibliography.
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Supplementary information about the size, habitat, and diet of each animal is included in the back matter.
Synonyms
Written pages after the main text that give extra information, like an index or a list of sources
How Extensive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'sections of a book that appear after the main text' is directly derivable from 'back' (rear) + 'matter' (written content): it denotes the content located at the back of a book. This composition follows an obvious spatial + content pattern (cf. front/back matter) that is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
Back matter comes from books: back means at the end and matter means the pages or content. The extra parts put 'after the main text', like an index or appendix, were literally at the back of the book, so the phrase now means those end sections.