Definition of "backwater" []

• Water held or pushed back by or as if by a dam or current. (noun)
• A body of water thus formed. (noun)
• A place or situation regarded as isolated, stagnant, or backward: "The running of family fortunes has always been a backwater—albeit a lucrative one—of the investment management business” ( Business Week). (noun)
• A rowing or paddling stroke in which the oar or paddle is pushed forward, used to check a boat's forward motion or move it backward. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Engineers expected the earthen levees at Krotz Springs to hold but are concerned about what they call backwater—water could travel farther south, then spread out and double back over lowlands, inundating about 240 homes here in the coming days."
• "Say what you will about Stalin (and personally, I say he was brutal, monomaniacal, and paranoid), but to accuse him, and his fellow Soviet leaders of turning “one of the leading scientific, cultural and industrial powers in the world” into a backwater is downright Orwellian in its dishonesty."
• "The other thing that makes it seem like a bit of a backwater is that there were not many attractions to go to."