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Glite Dictionary
backwardness

backwardness

2 6.3
Being less developed than others in education, money, or social life
  • noun
  • /ˈbæk.wɚd.nəs/
  • Offensive
: retraso
  • The community's backwardness in education was evident in the low literacy rates among its residents.
  • economic backwardness
  • technological backwardness
  • cultural backwardness

This is the backwardness of how medicine is right now.

Examples

  • State moral backwardness, after all, caused the mess the Amendments were designed to remedy.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Russia's underdevelopment and its backwardness were on display for all the world to see.

    Academic text (2008)

  • The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit.

    Reagan (2024)

  • There were, he says, four main environmental reasons for Western Hemisphere backwardness in 1492.

    Academic text (1999)

  • For a nation to be closed upon itself," he concluded, "is a sign of weakness, backwardness, and inertia."

    Academic text (1996)

  • The most obvious sign of Russia's backwardness was serfdom.

  • First is the region's relative developmental backwardness, especially of its southeastern parts.

    Academic text (1992)

  • Indians, for their part, face vast problems of political unrest, religious nationalism, and economic backwardness.

    Academic text (1996)

  • For Voltaire and Diderot, Eastern Europe was a space dominated by poverty, gloom, and backwardness.

    Academic text (2001)

  • Chekhov saw in such attitudes the reason for Russia's backwardness and self-righteous oppression of others.

    Blog text (17)

Synonyms

underdevelopment
vsbackwardness
1 5.0

A place that has not grown enough in jobs and living conditions

focuses more on intellectual and social lack rather than all fields
retrogression
vsbackwardness
  • Formal
1 8.9

A change back to an earlier, worse state in a country or system

refers to a stable lack of normal advancement rather than a process
regressiveness
vsbackwardness
1 8.5

A tendency for a law or system to make things less advanced

expresses lack of normal advancement, not only movement to earlier states
undereducation
vsbackwardness
1 6.5

Not having enough schooling to live and work well in society

is a wider condition of stalled progress not limited to schooling
slowness
vsbackwardness
  • Specialized
1 4.3

A condition when a person's ability to think and learn develops less quickly than usual

describes absence of normal advancement rather than only slower speed
subnormality
vsbackwardness
  • NSFW
9.5

A condition in which a person has lower than usual thinking ability

is a broader state of lacking normal progress in social or intellectual areas

Antonyms

development
789 2.5

A gradual change that makes something better or more advanced

advancement
102 4.1

Progress or growth that makes something better

How Developed

advancement
102 4.1
development
789 2.5
backwardness
  • Offensive
2 6.3

Surface Forms

backwardness singular
backwardnesses plural

Morphology

backwardness = backward (semi-transparent) = back + ward + ness

Formation from 'backward' + '-ness' is regular, but the adjective 'backward' often has a figurative sense ('behind in development') that is not transparently deducible from 'back' for all learners.

Etymology

Backwardness comes from the parts back 'the rear', -ward 'toward' and -ness 'state'. It paints a picture of being turned toward the back instead of moving forward, so it means the state of being behind in growth or progress.