Idiom
back forty
Meaning
The most remote or inaccessible part of any place.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He keeps his old tractor in the back forty.”
“We rarely visit the back forty of the property because the weeds are too tall.”
“The store manager had to search the back forty of the warehouse to find the extra boxes of winter coats that were delivered last month.”
“The explorer ventured into the back forty of the estate, where the dense forest had reclaimed the land long ago.”
Examples
simple
“He keeps his old tractor in the back forty.”
contextual
“We rarely visit the back forty of the property because the weeds are too tall.”
“The store manager had to search the back forty of the warehouse to find the extra boxes of winter coats that were delivered last month.”
complex
“The explorer ventured into the back forty of the estate, where the dense forest had reclaimed the land long ago.”
Origin
From *back* + *forty*, the term originated in the American 1860s following the passage of the Homestead Acts. Under these statutes, settlers were granted a quarter section of land. As a standard section was nominally one square mile containing 640 acres, a quarter section comprised 160 acres. This allotment was further partitioned into four quarter-quarter sections of 40 acres each.
The division of the 160-acre homestead created two front forty-acre plots and two back forty-acre plots. The latter term designated the most remote portion of the farm, situated furthest from the main buildings and the public road. The expression remains a linguistic relative of *north forty*, *backcountry*, and *backwater*.
Key words
Related idioms
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