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.

“With the oil revenues, we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people,” Mossadegh said in a June 21, 1951, speech.

From Barron's • Mar. 5, 2026

But since the end of the Civil War, its economy has languished, becoming a synonym for stagnation and backwardness.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 29, 2025

"In the 1990s our challenge was authoritarianism. We needed democracy. Today our challenge is inequality and backwardness," Budiman says in his campaign office, ahead of Indonesia's presidential race on 14 February.

From BBC • Feb. 9, 2024

The series has been constructed, from its camera moves to its soundtrack, as a kind of post-Cold War Cold War thriller, set in and around Moscow, whose backwardness makes it feel less than modern.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 20, 2023

I hadn't allowed the idea to take concrete form in my mind, but for a moment I had almost allowed an old, southern backwardness which I had thought dead to wreck my career.

From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison