the work of a baby sitter; caring for children when their parents are not home.

A broad, flat-bottomed ferryboat, usually worked by a rope.

an indehiscent fruit derived from a single ovary having one or many seeds within a fleshy wall or pericarp: e. g. grape; tomato; cranberry.

Pertaining to a bachelor of arts.

A French game of cards, played by a banker and punters.

Pulpy throughout, like a berry; -- said of fruits.

Having many berries.

A devotee of Bacchus; one who indulges in drunken revels; one who is noisy and riotous when intoxicated; a carouser.

A bacchanal; a drunken reveler.

The practice of bacchanalians; bacchanals; drunken revelry.

Bacchanalian; fond of drunken revelry; wine-loving; reveling; carousing.

A priestess of Bacchus.

Bacchanalian.

Of or relating to Bacchus; hence, jovial, or riotous, with intoxication; riotously drunken; -- used of revelrous gatherings.

A metrical foot composed of a short syllable and two long ones; according to some, two long and a short.

The god of wine, son of Jupiter and Semele.

Producing berries.

Having the form of a berry.

Eating, or subsisting on, berries; as, baccivorous birds.

See Base.

A man of any age who has not been married.

a knight of the lowest order; he was permitted to display only a pennon.

The state of bachelorhood; the whole body of bachelors.

The state or condition of being a bachelor; bachelorship.

Bachelorhood; also, a manner or peculiarity belonging to bachelors.

The state of being a bachelor.

The body of young aspirants for knighthood.

Shaped like a rod or staff.

See Diatom.

Of or pertaining to little rods; rod-shaped.

plural of bacillus; usually designating aerobic rod-shaped spore-producing bacteria; they often occur in chainlike formations.

Rod-shaped.

A variety of bacterium; a microscopic, rod-shaped vegetable organism.

a polypeptide antibacterial antibiotic of known chemical structure effective against several types of Gram-positive organisms, and usually used topically for superficial local infection.

In, to, or toward, the rear; as, to stand back; to step back.

Stairs in the back part of a house, as distinguished from the front stairs; a second staircase at the rear of a building; hence, a private or indirect way.

to serve as a backup{3} for (another person or persons); as, the patrolmen backed up the detectives as they went inside to make the arrest; the center fielder backed up the shortstop on the play.

a discussion; give-and-take.

To have or experience a back fire or back fires; -- said of an internal-combustion engine.

a word invented (usually unwittingly by subtracting an affix) on the assumption that a familiar word derives from it, such as emote from emotion.

occurring immediately one after the other; consecutive.

an ache localized in the back.

See Bacharach.

A kind of wine made at Bacharach on the Rhine.

Same as Baccare.

Stand back! give place! -- a cant word of the Elizabethan writers, probably in ridicule of some person who pretended to a knowledge of Latin which he did not possess.

The band which passes over the back of a horse and holds up the shafts of a carriage.

any of the seats occupied by backbenchers in the House of Commons of Great Britain.

a member of the House of Commons of Great Britain who is not a party leader.

an acrobatic feat in which the trunk is bent backward from a standing position until the hands touch the floor.

To censure or revile the absent.

One who backbites; a secret calumniator or detractor.

Secret slander; detraction.

An instrument which, in conjunction with another making an absolute disposition, constitutes a trust.

Vertebrate.

Anything which brings misfortune upon one, or causes failure in an effort or enterprise; a reverse.

to make effective from an earlier date; to make retroactive.

Acting from behind and in concealment; backstairs; as, backdoor intrigues.

A receding or giving up; a complete surrender.

the scenery hung at back of stage. Also called in Britain backcloth.

One who, or that which, backs; especially one who backs a person or thing in a contest.

A fall or throw on the back in wrestling.

A secret enemy.

In the game of backgammon, to beat by ending the game before the loser is clear of his first /table/. When played for betting purposes, the winner in such a case scores three times the wagered amount.

The execution of low priority programs while higher priority programs are not using the processing system.

Sloping from left to right; -- said of handwriting.

With the hand turned backward; as, a backhanded blow.

Stroked with a backhand{2}; as, a backhanded drive.

State of being backhanded; the using of backhanded or indirect methods.

A backhanded blow.

A method of tripping by getting the leg back of the opponent's heel on the outside and pulling forward while pushing his body back; a throw made in this way. To trip (a person) in this way.

A building behind the main building. A privy; an outhouse; a necessary.

The act of moving backward, or of putting or moving anything backward.

A rebate or chase in masonry left to receive a permanent slab or other filling.

The distance through which one part of connected machinery, as a wheel, piston, or screw, can be moved without moving the connected parts, resulting from looseness in fitting or from wear; also, the jarring or reflex motion caused in badly fitting machinery by irregularities in velocity or a reverse of motion.

Without a back.

A large stick of wood, forming the back of a fire on the hearth. Contrasted to forestick.

to hike while carrying a backpack; -- often used in the form go backpacking; as, to backpack through the forest.

one who backpacks; as, two backpackers were mauled by bears in Yellowstone this week.

pedal backwards, as on a bicycle.

A piece, or plate which forms the back of anything, or which covers the back.

See Bacharach.

a support that you can lean against while sitting.

the meeting place of a group of leaders who make their decisions via private negotiations.

Among leather dealers, the thickest and stoutest tanned hides.

A saw (as a tenon saw) whose blade is stiffened by an added metallic back.

To plow again, in the fall; -- said of prairie land broken up in the spring.

One living in the back or outlying districts of a community.

In Egypt and the Turkish empire, a relatively small amount of money given for services rendered (as by a waiter); a gratuity; a /tip/.

The hinder part, posteriors, or rump of a person or animal.

The reading of the leveling staff in its unchanged position when the leveling instrument has been taken to a new position; a sight directed backwards to a station previously occupied. Cf. Foresight, n., 3.

To slide back; to fall away; esp. to abandon gradually the faith and practice of a religion that has been professed.

One who backslides.

The act of one who backslides; abandonment of faith or duty.

In typing text, to press the backspace key so as to reposition the carriage or cursor on the previous space.

The key on a typewriter or other keyboard used for back spacing.

An instrument formerly used for taking the altitude of the heavenly bodies, but now superseded by the quadrant and sextant; -- so called because the observer turned his back to the body observed.

concealed from the public; in private.

Private; indirect; secret; conducted with secrecy; intriguing; -- as if finding access by the back stairs; as, backstairs gossip.

A rope or stay extending from the masthead to the side of a ship, slanting a little aft, to assist the shrouds in supporting the mast.

A baker.

To sew with backstitches; as, to backstitch a seam.

In baseball, a fence, prop. at least 90 feet behind the home base, to stop the balls that pass the catcher; also, the catcher himself.

A female baker.

a swimming stroke that resembles the crawl except the swimmer lies on his or her back. It is usually executed with backward-moving circular arm strokes and a flutter kick.

aligned from front to back; slanted toward the back; -- used of hair.

any of numerous predaceous aquatic insects of the family Notonectidae (such as Notonecta undulata) that swim on their backs and may inflict painful bites; -- also called boat bug.

A sword with one sharp edge.

anything kept in reserve to serve as a substitute in case of failure or unavailability of the normal or primary object; -- used for devices, plans, people, etc. Also used attributively; as, there was no backup for the electrical supply; a backup motor; a backup generator.

To keep back; to hinder.

The seller's postponement of delivery of stock or shares, with the consent of the buyer, upon payment of a premium to the latter; -- also, the premium so paid. See Contango.

Reluctantly; slowly; aversely.

The state of being backward.

With the back in advance or foremost; as, to ride backward.

The flow of water propelled backward by the propeller, paddle wheel, or oars of a boat.

Water turned back in its course by an obstruction, an opposing current, or the flow of the tide, as in a sewer or river channel, or across a river bar.

The forests or partly cleared grounds on the frontiers.

A man living in the forest in or beyond the new settlements, especially on the western frontiers of the United States in former times.

A disease of hawks. See Filanders.

The back and sides of a pig salted and smoked; formerly, the flesh of a pig salted or fresh.