Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of a horse, a loose term for *hollow-backed.
- Having the back broken, in any sense of the noun back: as, a broken-backed book.
- Specifically Nautical, hogged: descriptive of the condition of a ship when, from faulty construction or from grounding, her frame becomes so loosened as to cause both ends to droop.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Having a broken back.
- adjective (Naut.) Hogged; so weakened in the frame as to droop at each end; -- said of a ship.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Having a broken
back - adjective nautical, of a ship
Drooping at each end because of a damagedspine - adjective
Decrepit ,weakened
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of a ship) so weakened as to sag at each end
- adjective (of a horse) having bones of the back united by a bony growth
- adjective having the spine damaged
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word broken-backed.
Examples
-
People sat here and there in broken-backed kitchen chairs, sipping tea under the shade of bamboo and burlap.
-
People sat here and there in broken-backed kitchen chairs, sipping tea under the shade of bamboo and burlap.
-
People sat here and there in broken-backed kitchen chairs, sipping tea under the shade of bamboo and burlap.
-
Yet the drama, in Alexander Medvedev's libretto, excellently translated by Pountney, is at times broken-backed.
-
People sat here and there in broken-backed kitchen chairs, sipping tea under the shade of bamboo and burlap.
-
Under the peculiar division of federal and provincial powers in the Canadian constitution, a broken-backed form of Prohibition had settled over the Dominion four years before the bone-dry version reached the United States.
LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010
-
I had massacred one of his greatest works with my dreadful broken-backed portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar back at Berkeley, but I knew that I was destined to play the role again, and I believed I would find redemption in the second attempt.
Full Frontal Nudity Harry Hamlin 2010
-
Iran is no broken-backed land enfeebled by decades of war and sanctions.
Archive 2008-07-01 Not a sheep 2008
-
Under the peculiar division of federal and provincial powers in the Canadian constitution, a broken-backed form of Prohibition had settled over the Dominion four years before the bone-dry version reached the United States.
LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010
-
Charlotte's Web, which we'd been reading together at bedtime all that week, lay splayed broken-backed on the floor where she'd thrown it.
Magnificent Pigs 2009
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.