backwater

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

As private credit ascended from a Wall Street backwater to a booming market, the industry found the nation’s insurance companies to be a ready source of capital.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026

Ms. Allen concedes their regionalism but argues that they were wiser for understanding that a “provincial backwater offers as full a panoply of human folly, nobility, tragedy, and absurdity as any great metropolis.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026

The exact coordinates of this backwater are a bit hazy, but Storyteller 2 helpfully pinpoints the locale as “a place where being from somewhere is who you are.”

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2025

Olympics, but Southern California — which did not have a Russian Consulate — was considered a backwater in the Cold War spy game.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 23, 2025

The university was then almost as much of a physics backwater as Berkeley had been when Lawrence first set foot on its campus, especially in comparison to its Cambridge neighbor, MIT.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik