backveld

B3A1C3K5V4E1L1D2

noun

Backward and unsophisticated rural areas.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

nounbackveld (plural backvelds)

plural backvelds

  1. AfricaSouthernBackward and unsophisticated rural areas.

    And how was she to know that one may live in London, or New York, a village in Yorkshire, or a dorp in the backveld […] but one behaves inevitably, inexorably, exactly like everyone else.

    1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 232
    1 more example

    If it hadn't been for Susan he might have ended his life in some small, forgotten backveld village, quietly content to teach a bit of history and geography to one generation of school children after the other […].

    1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 20

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

backveld. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backveld

MLA

“backveld.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backveld. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “backveld,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backveld.

Source: backveld on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.