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

• backvelder