as in countryside
a rural region that forms the edge of the settled or developed part of a country
a distant backwater that didn't even have electricity at that time
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Recent Examples of backwater
Previously, wild rice was most commonly found in the still, shallow backwater areas of the river.
—
Madeline Heim, Journal Sentinel, 4 Dec. 2024
Set in the future with humanity colonizing the Solar System, the resources across the various planets and asteroids render the Earth a financial backwater.
—Ollie Barder, Forbes, 2 Dec. 2024
The 20-year road Army traveled from football backwater to College Football Playoff contender was hardly a straight line.
—Pete Sampson, The Athletic, 22 Nov. 2024
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State Schmidt’s counterpart in Georgia similarly would prefer the job as elections chief had remained a bureaucratic backwater.
—Philip Elliott, TIME, 4 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for backwater 
Madeline Heim, Journal Sentinel, 4 Dec. 2024
Set in the future with humanity colonizing the Solar System, the resources across the various planets and asteroids render the Earth a financial backwater.
—Ollie Barder, Forbes, 2 Dec. 2024
The 20-year road Army traveled from football backwater to College Football Playoff contender was hardly a straight line.
—Pete Sampson, The Athletic, 22 Nov. 2024
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State Schmidt’s counterpart in Georgia similarly would prefer the job as elections chief had remained a bureaucratic backwater.
—Philip Elliott, TIME, 4 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for backwater
Recent Examples of Synonyms for backwater
Noun
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Set in 1973, Rabbit Trap stars Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen as Darcy and Daphne, an influential musical couple from London who retreats to an isolated cabin in the Welsh countryside to finish their next album.—
Glenn Garner,
Deadline,
24 Jan. 2025
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Constable renders the particulars of the 19th-century British countryside with dazzling care.—
Daniel Foster,
National Review,
23 Jan. 2025
Noun
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The researchers evaluated several multimodal frontier models, including Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet-3.5, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and both OpenAI’s GPT-4o and new reasoning model, o1.—
Britney Nguyen,
Quartz,
23 Jan. 2025
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But now the former astronaut, NFL player, engineer and educator is stepping into yet another new frontier as an author.—
Lizz Schumer,
People.com,
23 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Look at nature and consider the fact that although bushfires destroy, there are certain bushes that only grow as a result of that bushfire.—
Simone Milasas,
Forbes,
22 Jan. 2025
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The key is to ensure the plants and bushes aren't touching each other and the house, acting like a highway for the flames.—
Lauren Sommer,
NPR,
17 Jan. 2025
Noun
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The Alliance for Automotive Innovation has pushed to continue the tax credit and other support, arguing that US automakers seeking to build and sell EVs need the help to compete with Chinese automakers who make far more vehicles than any other country, thanks to China’s focus on EV sales.—
Chris Isidore,
CNN,
22 Jan. 2025
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Economists at Goldman Sachs now place 70 percent odds on Trump’s slapping some kind of tariff on China, and a 25 percent probability on his enacting levies on goods from all countries.—
Andrew Ross Sorkin,
New York Times,
22 Jan. 2025
Noun
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As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war.—
Mike Fleming Jr,
Deadline,
22 Jan. 2025
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Glenn has been a big part of Lions’ coach Dan Campbell’s staff in their efforts to bring that awful franchise from the hinterlands.—
Mac Engel,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
13 Jan. 2025
Noun
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True to its name, this extraordinary conflict saw armed soldiers pitted against emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae), large flightless birds native to the Australian outback.—
Scott Travers,
Forbes,
26 Dec. 2024
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Watch on Hulu The Royal Hotel Ozark star Julia Garner reunites with director Kitty Green (The Assistant) for this taut psychological thriller in which BFFs Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) decide to backpack their way through the Australian outback.—
Jennifer M. Wood,
WIRED,
7 Nov. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near backwater
Cite this Entry
“Backwater.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/backwater. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
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