BACKBONE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Backbone

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/bˈækbˌoʊn/ Listen

noun

Backbone n.

The column of bones in the back which sustains and gives firmness to the frame; the spine; the vertebral or spinal column.

Anything like, or serving the purpose of, a backbone. "The lofty mountains on the north side compose the granitic axis, or backbone of the country." "We have now come to the backbone of our subject."

Firmness; moral principle; steadfastness. "Shelley's thought never had any backbone."

To the backbone, through and through; thoroughly; entirely. "Staunch to the backbone."

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Etymology of 'Backbone'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Backbone" Quotes from Famous Books

... know nothing? Or was it that fatal combination of Spain and Africa, when the Vandals ensconced themselves in both provinces by 428 and the Vandal fleet (with Majorca and the islands for its bases) cut off Rome from her corn supplies and broke the backbone of ancient civilization, which was the Mediterranean sea? Not once alone in the history of Europe has the triumph of a hostile rule in Africa and Spain spelt disaster to ...

— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... the latter be. Thus to the student of heredity nothing could well seem more improbable, at any rate amongst the higher animals, than that characters so profound as those of sex should be determined by nurture. He simply cannot but believe that the sex of the individual is as inborn as his backbone, and as incapable of being created by varying conditions of nurture. The causation of sex is therefore really a problem in heredity; and we may most confidently assert, in the first place, that the sex of every human being is already determined at the moment of conception when, indeed, the new ...

— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... She is New England to the backbone, and one who is New England to the backbone is insufferable. She is stiff and set in her ways. She would go to the stake for a fad, or send her nearest ...

— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... I am not; but I am a Confederate to the backbone. It was my intention to set up a navy on my own hook. The Pedee was the first vessel, and I intended that the Vixen should be the second, and ...

— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... true. He remembered that the repairs, which were the backbone of Paasch's trade, began to come in slowly on Monday. Paasch always began the week by making a pair of boots for the window, which he sold at half price when the leather had perished. In his eagerness for work, he had forgotten that Paasch's business was so small. ...

— Jonah • Louis Stone

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