SETBACK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Setback

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noun

Setback n.

(Arch.) Offset, n., 4.

A backset; a countercurrent; an eddy. (U. S.)

A reversal of progress in an endeavor; a reverse; a backset; a check; a repulse; a relapse. (Colloq. U.S.)

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Etymology of 'Setback'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Setback" Quotes from Famous Books

... popularity of the municipal reform movement, both in Great Britain and in other countries, has received at least a temporary setback as the relations between this "municipal Socialism" and taxation were recognized. Both the non-taxpaying working people and the small taxpaying middle class saw that the profits of the new municipal enterprises went to a considerable ...

— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... lessening the numbers of certain noxious weeds, and in some instances of eradicating them altogether. This it does in some instances by smothering them, through the rankness of the growth. In other instances it is brought about through the setback which is given to the weeds by first pasturing the crop and then ...

— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... read: "We hope that the setback to civilisation, the check to commerce and development, in this promising centre of our colony may be but temporary; and that capital may again come to the rescue. Where one man was successful, others ...

— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... jeopardizing a great and established business—I will say little of that—but you are risking the prosperity of a whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should quit this section, the civilization of the state would receive a serious setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of employment, not only on the company's works, but all along the lines of its holdings; electric light and power would increase in price—a heavy burden to the consumer; the country ...

— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... little progress until he and his contemporaries at Longworth College should have reached military age, and be able to take their due part in the struggle, at which happy crisis the Germans would receive a setback ...

— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... on the street again. The setback chilled his ardor, but only for an instant, and then he hurried ...

— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer

... appearance in this company, as indicating the new political move which sought to ally the younger business element with the progressive party that had been so long in safe, sane and conservative control of municipal affairs, except for the temporary setback of the recent so-called "citizens' movement" hysteria. Bobby frowned more deeply as he read on, and Mr. Bates ...

— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... until the railroad pushed through the great Northwest about 1880. Those familiar with the history of the state of Washington declare that dry-farming was in successful operation in isolated districts in the late '70's. By 1890 it was a well-established practice, but received a serious setback by the financial panic of 1892-1893. Really successful and extensive dry-farming in the Columbia Basin began about 1897. The practice of summer fallow had begun a year or two before. It is interesting to note that both in California and ...

— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... government realized too late that serious trouble was brewing among the half-breeds and Indians of the North-West. Unless troops could be sent in before the grass grew, Riel would have thousands of Indians on the war-path, and a long and bloody contest and a serious setback to the West would be inevitable. The railway was far from complete, with a hundred and twenty miles of gaps unfilled, and the government considered it impossible to get the troops in in time. But ...

— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... sweet with fair size kernels ... Giant hickory from Ontario seems hardy but particular about the kind of soil ... Carpathian walnuts killed back quite a lot, so did most of my hybrid walnuts ... Some Manchurian walnuts ... got a setback with spring frosts ... Heartnuts got a rough deal last winter [1942-43.]" Mr. Young wrote to Dr. J. Russell Smith in 1948: "I have been using pollen of Broadview and Carpathian [Persian walnuts] on my ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

Words linked to "Setback" : blow, black eye, occurrent, occurrence, happening