backtrail

plural backtrails

1. A small path or trail that is not used regularly.

   The path of renunciation has many sideroads. It is all the more tragic that the radiant Christina Light becomes so benighted in defeat as to pursue moral backtrails out of a bored self-abandon.

   1975, Dale E. Peterson, The clement vision: poetic realism in Turgenev and James, page 100

2. The path over which one has already traveled.

   When it was light enough we climbed a mesa, winding around the far side before coming up to watch our backtrail.

   2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 41

   1 more example

   They waited there for some five minutes when, suddenly, on the backtrail, perhaps a half mile or more behind them, there were three flashes, sudden and bright, one after the other, brilliant in the cold, pure air.

   2009, John Norman, The King, page 306

present singular third person backtrails · participle present backtrailing · participle past backtrailed · past backtrailed

1. To backtrack along a trail.

   He reshouldered his rifle. "Want to backtrail with me?"

   1999, Dana Stabenow, Hunter's Moon, →ISBN, page 50

   2 more examples

   If they didn't, they would then have to backtrail to try to pick it up

   1990, Wesley Ellis, Lone Star 97/bounty, →ISBN

   I hoped Carson knew where he was going, because there was no room to backtrail here.

   2013, Connie Willis, Uncharted Territory, →ISBN