Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun plural Heavily wooded, uncultivated, thinly settled areas.
  • noun plural An area that is far from population centers or that is held to be culturally backward.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Wooded or partially uncleared and unsettled districts in the remote parts of a new country; hence, in the United States and Canada, any rough or thinly settled region far from the centers of population.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun plural The forests or partly cleared grounds on the frontiers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Partly or wholly uncleared forest, especially in North America.
  • noun A remote or sparsely inhabited region, especially in North America; away from big towns and from the influence of modern life.
  • adjective Pertaining to the backwoods.
  • adjective Rough, uncouth, coarse, or crude in social matters.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a remote and undeveloped area

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From back +‎ woods.

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