different between backset vs backest

English

Etymology

back +? set

Noun

backset (plural backsets)

1. A check; a relapse; a discouragement; a setback.
2. Whatever is thrown back in its course, such as water.
   • Harper's Magazine

     Slackwater, or the backset caused by the overflow.

Verb

backset (third-person singular simple present backsets, present participle backsetting, simple past and past participle backset)

1. (US, especially Western US) To plow again in the fall; said of prairie land broken up in the spring.

Further reading

• backset in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• backest, backets, set back, setback

English

Etymology

back +? -est

Adjective

backest

1. (phonetics) superlative form of back: most back

   Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller (2005), Phonetics for communication disorders, p. 56:

   He set up two anchor points for his system using articulatory criteria: cardinal vowel 1 was the highest, frontest vowel that one could make without the sound becoming a consonant, and cardinal vowel 5 was the lowest, backest vowel one could produce without pulling the tongue back into the pharynx.

Verb

backest

1. (archaic) second-person singular simple present form of back

Anagrams

• backets, backset, set back, setback

German

Pronunciation

Verb

backest

1. second-person singular subjunctive I of backen