Backform
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of back-form. alt-of, alternative
"Pennanen (1966: 150) also commented on the relative productiveness of British and American English in backforming new words: Although the coining of back-formations is at present mainly carried on in America on the various levels of spoken and written usage, it should be emphasized that the difference here is one of degree only."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Pennanen (1966: 150) also commented on the relative productiveness of British and American English in backforming new words: Although the coining of back-formations is at present mainly carried on in America on the various levels of spoken and written usage, it should be emphasized that the difference here is one of degree only."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.