backpack
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
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a rucksack or knapsack
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a pack carried on the back of an astronaut, containing oxygen cylinders, essential supplies, etc
verb
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(intr) to travel about or go hiking with a backpack
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(tr) to transport (food or equipment) by backpack
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
backpacksimple
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backpackssimple
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have backpackedperfect
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has backpackedperfect
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am backpackingprogressive
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are backpackingprogressive
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is backpackingprogressive
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have been backpackingperfect progressive
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has been backpackingperfect progressive
Past
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backpackedsimple
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had backpackedperfect
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was backpackingprogressive
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were backpackingprogressive
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had been backpackingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of backpack
Explanation
A backpack is a bag you wear on your back, with straps over your shoulders. Lots of kids carry their books to school in a backpack. A hiker might carry a heavy backpack for miles, with food and a folded tent inside, while a kindergartner's backpack will be much smaller, and may have a cartoon character on it. You can also call this portable kind of bag a rucksack. If you hike with a backpack, you go backpacking, and you can call yourself a backpacker. The word's been around since the earliest 20th century.
Vocabulary lists containing backpack
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.
See Examples For:
"Like everyone else, we're on standby, vehicles ready and a backpack packed. All we can do is wait," he said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026
Desperate to track down the traitor who sold him and his comrades out, the super soldier is accompanied by three killed-in-action squad mates, whose personalities have been stored in his gun, helmet and backpack.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
“I’m with my backpack all the time,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
The man was wearing a balaclava, gloves and a backpack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026
I slide the groceries and my backpack into the back seat and climb in beside them.
From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam
Texas: Most clothing, shoes, school supplies and backpacks under $100 are tax-free Aug. 7-9.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
What if we weren’t destined to tear each other limb from limb, to yell instead of speaking, or dig our backpacks into each other’s bodies on the train?
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
In the first, players held purple school backpacks decorated with bows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Capybara merch is wildly popular in the zoo’s gift shops, which sell 25,000 capybara-themed items a year: almost 7,000 plush toys, plus keychains, backpacks, cups, caps, bottles, slippers, and lamps.
From Slate ● May 27, 2026
But Finn, Emma, and Chess all plopped their backpacks down beside the huge table in the kitchen and began taking out folders and books.
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
It was the cello that became a recurring motif in Mr. Epstein’s self-told life story, starting after he and a friend backpacked in Europe in the early 1970s.
From New York Times ● Apr. 22, 2022
“I’m so happy to be back,” said Monica Macri, as she led her line of energetic, masked and backpacked fourth-graders toward their designated school entrance.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 1, 2021
“I’ve backpacked all over the world. … There are places in this country I would never go on my own. It is my loss. I just don’t trust the public.”
From Washington Times ● Jun. 23, 2020
Tock grew a beard, borrowed a Volkswagen van and backpacked through Western national parks with a friend.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 27, 2019
Some ding-dongs believe me, though, and when that happens, I keep the lie going, spinning it until I run out of ideas: I backpacked through France, Germany, and Spain with my rich aunt from Barcelona.
From "I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" by Erika L. Sánchez
I saw these and many other otherworldly species while on a life-changing backpacking trip to the island five years ago, which I chronicled for this newspaper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
The Gatlinburg, Tenn., company offers special viewing tours and backpacking trips in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Simone White, 28, from Orpington, south-east London, was one of a number of people taken to hospital when she had been staying in the popular backpacking town of Vang Vieng.
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2026
Loktev hasn’t completed a film since 2011’s “The Loneliest Planet,” which starred Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg as soon-to-be-wed lovers backpacking through the Georgian countryside, their seemingly close bond shattered after a harrowing encounter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
It’s hard to do that when you’re backpacking in Nepal.
From "Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel" by Harlan Coben
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
