backveld

English

Etymology

From back +‎ veld.

Noun

backveld (plural backvelds)

  1. (southern Africa) Backward and unsophisticated rural areas.
    • 1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 232:
      And how was she to know that one may live in London, or New York, a village in Yorkshire, or a dorp in the backveld […] but one behaves inevitably, inexorably, exactly like everyone else.
    • 1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 20:
      If it hadn't been for Susan he might have ended his life in some small, forgotten backveld village, quietly content to teach a bit of history and geography to one generation of school children after the other […].

Derived terms
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