backwoods

From back +‎ woods.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbak.wʊdz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

backwoods pl (plural only)

1. Partly or wholly uncleared forest, especially in North America.
2. A remote or sparsely inhabited region, especially in North America; away from big towns and from the influence of modern life.
   • 1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of, Nebraska, published 1987, page 22:

     about that time, you may […] reckon, if like me you belong to the back-woods, that I began to make up my acquaintance with hard times, and a plenty of them.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:

     It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

backwoods (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to the backwoods.
2. Rough, uncouth, coarse, or crude in social matters.

• backwood

• backwoodsman
• backwoodsy

• “backwoods”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.