{
    "term": "backward",
    "partOfSpeech": "adjective",
    "definitions": [
        {
            "senseNumber": 1,
            "definition": "directed or moving towards the back",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "She strode past him **without a backward glance**."
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 2,
            "definition": "moving in a direction that means that no progress is being made",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "She felt that going back to live in her home town would be a backward step."
                }
            ],
            "synonyms": "retrograde"
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 3,
            "definition": "having made less progress than normal; developing slowly",
            "labels": "(often offensive)(British English, informal)",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "a backward part of the country, with no paved roads and no electricity"
                },
                {
                    "text": "She's not **backward in coming forward** *(= she's not shy)*."
                }
            ],
            "collocations": {
                "verbs": ["be", "seem"],
                "adverb": ["extremely", "fairly", "very"]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 4,
            "definition": "slow to learn; finding it difficult to make progress in learning",
            "labels": "(old-fashioned, offensive)",
            "examples": []
        }
    ],
    "pronunciations": {
        "uk": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/ˈbækwəd/",
                "audio": "ba/backward/backward__gb_1.mp3"
            }
        ],
        "us": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/ˈbækwərd/",
                "audio": "ba/backward/backward__us_1.mp3"
            }
        ]
    },
    "wordOrigin": "Middle English: from earlier abackward, from aback."
}