[f. BACK a. or adv.]
† 1. Water flowing in from behind. Obs.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls Ser.), I. 57. Strengþe of ryueres and bakwateres [impetus fluminum a tergo labentium] dryueþ forþ þe see Euxinum alway in oon cours.
1577. Harrison, Descr. Brit., xii. Sundrie small creekes void of backwater.
2. Water dammed back in the channel of a swollen or obstructed river (or mill-race), or that has overflowed into shallow lagoons near it.
1629. H. Burton, Babel no Bethel, Ep. Ded. A continuall current, that so merrily driues the Popish mills about, and sets ours in a back water or float.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 366. To free their land from the back-water, when Loch-Lubnaig is overcharged in the rainy season.
3. An artificial accumulation of water dammed back for any purpose.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 77. An artificial back-water, capable … of sweeping out the harbour’s mouth clean from all obstructions.
1861. Smiles, Engineers, II. 68. By means of sluices, supplied by an artificial backwater.
4. A piece of water without current, lying more or less parallel to a river, and fed from it at the lower end by a back-flow.
1863. Kingsley, Water Bab., iii. 107. The great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater.
1872. Taunt, Map Thames, 21/2. In some of the backwaters are fine Pike.
Mod. The back-waters of the Amazon are of enormous extent.
fig. 1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 20. Paul found there on his arrival a strange backwater of religious opinion.
5. A creek or arm of the sea, parallel to the coast, separated by a narrow strip of land from the open sea, with which it communicates by barred outlets.
1867. in Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
6. A backward current of water.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 271. The current … is a backwater, wherein the tide … runs nine hours towards the north, and only three towards the south.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, i. (1858), 198. A kind of backwater, or eddying swirl.
7. The swell of the sea thrown back from contact with a solid body, esp. from the paddles of steamboats; hence, the loss of power occasioned by it in steamboats. Also attrib.
1838. Poe, A. G. Pym, Wks. 1864, IV. 83. Those which came from the larboard, being what are called back-water seas.
c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 370/2. The back-water cast from the paddles or screw.
