back-reference
|back-ref-er-ence|
🇺🇸
/ˈbækˌrɛf(ə)rəns/
🇬🇧
/ˈbækˌrɛf(ərəns)/
a reference to something earlier
Etymology
'back-reference' originates from English, specifically formed by combining 'back' (ultimately from Old English 'bæc' meaning 'back') and 'reference' (from Latin 'referre' via Old French and Middle English), where 'back' meant 'the rear' and 'reference' meant 'a bringing back or referring'.
'back-reference' developed as a compound in modern English (earlier attested as 'back reference' or 'back-reference'); 'reference' evolved from Latin 'referre' → Old French (refere/ referer) → Middle English 'referren', and the hyphenated compound gained specialized technical usage in the 20th century in fields like computing and linguistics.
Initially the components conveyed the ideas 'back' and 'to refer/bring back'; over time the compound acquired specialized technical senses (for example, the regex 'backreference' and links/ backlinks that point to earlier items).
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
in regular expressions (regex), a reference to a previously captured group so that the pattern can match the same text again (commonly called a 'backreference').
In the regex, the back-reference \1 matches the exact text captured by the first group.
Synonyms
Noun 2
a reference or link that points to an earlier part of a document, data structure, or resource (a reference going 'back' rather than forward).
The article included several back-references to earlier sections for clarification.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/12/29 11:25