backsplash

From back +‎ splash.

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• Rhymes: -æʃ

backsplash (countable and uncountable, plural backsplashes)

1. A vertical covering on a wall rising above a countertop or other work surface to protect the wall from spills and to decorate the wall.
2. (rowing) The small splash of water that occurs when an oar enters the water to begin a stroke, just before the rower reaches the catch.

• fireback

backsplash (third-person singular simple present backsplashes, present participle backsplashing, simple past and past participle backsplashed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To splash backward.
   • 1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger:

     He succeeded in cutting the pad of his right palm quite badly on the blade of a paring knife before seizing two of the C-cells, but he felt this no more than he felt the burns he had sustained when he had been backsplashed.

   • 2004, Yin Sun, Detection Technologies for Chemical Warfare Agents and Toxic Vapors, page 92:

     More importantly, the use of the delta tube prevents dangerous backsplashing of the agent that can occur when an impinging sparger is used improperly.

• splashback