backwing

English

Duck backwinging

Aglais urticae - the backwings have larger blue spots than the forewings and show a solid brown patch rather than spots.

Verb

backwing (third-person singular simple present backwings, present participle backwinging, simple past and past participle backwinged)

1. To flap the wings in such a way as to push air forward, thereby slowing forward momentum.
   • 1998, Dana Stabenow, Fire and Ice, page 212:

     As he got out, a raven backwinged to a landing in a nearby tree and was scolded by a squirrel who had thought that it was his spruce.

   • 2011, Erin Hoffman, Sword of Fire and Sea, →ISBN:

     As they drew closer, the cause of their ragged flight became apparent: the lead gryphon flew irregularly, and the two that followed were forced to rush ahead or backwing alternately to keep up.

   • 2016, Selena I. R. Drake, The Lullaby Shriek, →ISBN, page 53:

     The fire demon had rushed him, and landed a strike that sent the angelic demon skidding back with such force that he had to backwing to stop.

Wayang puppet with gilded backwing

Noun

backwing (plural backwings)

1. An act of backwinging.
   • 2009, Brenda Cooper, Wings of Creation, →ISBN, page 114:

     With a disgusted backwing, I let myself down, hard.

   • 2012, J. Michael Fluck, Dragon Alliance: Dark Storm, →ISBN:

     The very ground seemed to shake with the landing impact of all those silver and gold dragons, as well as the backwing flaps of over a thousand large, feathered mounts.

   • 2013, Kevin Hearne, Hunted: The Iron Druid Chronicles, →ISBN:

     We were just about finished when two large ravens descended with thunderous backwings that sounded like chopper blades.

2. One of the posterior pair of wings on an insect.
   • 1952, Zoologische Beitra Ge Aus Uppsala, page 20:

     The white band on the under side of the backwings is often reduced.

   • 1992, Living with insects:

     The forewing is complete, but the backwing disappeared.

   • 2007, Lambillionea - Volume 107, page 296:

     18 of 38 of the females have two black eyespots on the forewings. Seven of those show a tiny white centre in the black eyespots. All female specimens have completely black backwings.

3. The back portion of a bird's wing.
   • 1972, Britain's Year Book of Pigeon Racing, page 12:

     I require a rigid skeletal shape and vent bones, nothing soft of spongy, excellent musculature, soft feathering and a good backwing and tail

   • 1980, The American Racing Pigeon News - Volume 96, page 11:

     But what I referred to there was, if the backwing of a racer is trimmed, I would not recommend entering that bird in a race in which there was a headwind.

4. A wing-like projection on the upper back of some a Wayang puppets.
   • 1988, R. L. Mellema, Wayang Puppets: Carving, Colouring and Symbolism, page 43:

     The colours of the backwing are the following: the gubahan motif must be gilded, the tendrils of the gubahan motife are preferably made blue or or orange, the leaf work must be red and green.

   • 1991, Peter Buurman, Wayang golek: the entrancing world of classical West Javanese puppet theatre:

     These points represent a remnant of the badong or backwing. In fact, only those characters that wear a backwing in wayang kulit should have these two points (see page 37, Rahwana).

5. The flap of a dust jacket that folds around the back cover of a book.
   • 1984, Hugh McManners, Falklands Commando, page 11:

     Mr Roger Opie, a Cornish farmer whose military knowledge would make him a formidable adversary if ever the Duchy declared itself independent, was the reader for whom I first imagined myself to be writing; to his encouragement, his wife Sue added the photographic expertise which contrived the flattering portrait that adorns the backwing of the jacket.

6. A wing at the rear of a building.
   • 1951, The Compass of Sigma Gamma Epsilon - Volume 29, page 162:

     We are rather stifled by the Administration, however, until the second and third floors of the backwings are completed and we can kick the Applied Mechanics Department and Mineral Industries Department out, when they can move in the new Academic Science Building when that is completed, at which time then we will have space for a lounge.

   • 1989, Richard Joseph Neutra, William Marlin, Nature Near: The Late Essays of Richard Neutra, page 184:

     Behind the neo-Renaissance facades were high-rental apartments, and behind these, filling up the deeply cut speculative properties, were labyrinths of dark courts and backwings, one behind the other.

   • 2017, Ace Finlay, Avilascaca Season 1 Episodes 1-8, →ISBN:

     Somehow I managed a nod...and Ramses satisfied disappeared and started for the upper levels presumably through one of the backwings that were located parallel but behind the main floors in the complex.

Anagrams

• wing back, wing-back, wingback