unbacked
English edit
Etymology edit
Adjective edit
unbacked (comparative more unbacked, superlative most unbacked)
- (not comparable) Having no back.
- an unbacked bench
- Not supported or backed up (by someone or something).
- Synonym: unsupported
- 1609, Thomas Heywood, Troia Britanica: or, Great Britaines Troy[2], London: W. Iaggard, Canto 14, stanza 103, p. 381:
- The warlike Wench amongst the Greekes doth stand
Vnbackt by Troy, left of her Damsels all,
The battery of a thousand swords she bides,
Till her yron plates are hew’d off from her sides.
- 1954, William Golding, Lord of the Flies:
- The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the weight of Ralph’s new authority, brought light and happiness.
- 1962, Doris Lessing, “Free Women: 2”, in The Golden Notebook[4], New York: Bantam, published 1979, page 306:
- This was an intellectual decision, unbacked by moral energy.
- Having no (or few) backers.
- an unbacked racehorse
- a largely unbacked fundraising project
- (obsolete, not comparable) Of an animal: never having been ridden or not accustomed to being ridden; not (currently) being ridden.
- Synonym: unbroken
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
- […] like unback’d colts, they prick’d their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music:
- 1646, John Suckling, Fragmenta Aurea[5], London: Humphrey Moseley, page 71:
- […] a well wayed horse will safely convay thee to thy journeys end, when an unbackt Filly may by chance give thee a fall:
- 1753, William Hogarth, chapter 17, in The Analysis of Beauty[6], London: for the author, page 140:
- […] whoever has seen a fine arabian war-horse, unback’d and at liberty, and in a wanton trot, cannot but remember what a large waving line his rising, and at the same time pressing forward, cuts through the air;
- 1823, Mary Shelley, Valperga, London: G. and W.B. Whittaker, Volume 2, Chapter 10, p. 237,[7]
- […] having visited his charger which was to be led unbacked to the field, he mounted a black palfrey;
- 1890, Rudyard Kipling, “The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney”, in Mine Own People[8], New York: Manhattan Press, page 176:
- Shakbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought of his ramping war-horses answering to that description. He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them by starvation.
- (photography, holography) (of a plate) Not having an antihalation backing.[1]