backward

1. Indicating position or direction.Examples: "This is a backward step for the country."figuratively

2. (figuratively) Expressing lack of development or advancement.Examples: "The child is backward in his school work."; "The effect is to retard their progress—giving them too little opportunity and too little incentive for copying the language of adults— and a little later the child is pained and the parents' ears tingle at hearing a chance remark: “ How terribly backward she is about talking.""; "The fact that a child is backward in talking is no sign of defective intelligence, nor does it prove that it will be a slow pupil."figuratively

3. (figuratively) Expressing lack of development or advancement.Examples: "They were a backward people without any writing."; "Most cruelly, the immediate security interests of the United States and the states surrounding Somalia are now to keep it a failed state, to prevent Islamists from consolidating even a weak state centered on Mogadishu. The leader of the victorious faction, one Aden Hashi 'Ayro, is said to be a veteran of Afghanistan; he knows well what a small sanctuary in a backward corner of the globe can mean for al Qaeda."Synonyms: crudefiguratively

4. (figuratively) Expressing lack of development or advancement.Examples: "a backward child"figuratively

5. (figuratively) Expressing lack of development or advancement.Examples: "The party’s ideas and policies are very backward."Synonyms: antediluvian, antiquated, backwards, parachronistic, retrograde, anachronistic, antediluvial, antediluvianAntonyms: progressivefiguratively

6. (figuratively) Expressing lack of development or advancement.Examples: "a backward season"; ""[…] I've a job of work to finish tonight; mourning, as must be in time for the funeral to-morrow; and grandfather has been out moss- hunting, and will not be home till late." "Oh, how charming it will be! I'll help you if you're backward. Have you much to do?""; "We have had a long run of heavy, wet and squally weather; the dry season is two months backward, and the Lepidoptera have not appeared so abundantly as they should have done."Synonyms: overdue, tardy, backward, behindhand, belated, late, lated, overduefiguratively