'backspace' is a modern English compound, formed from 'back' + 'space', where 'back' (from Old English 'bæc') meant 'the rear; backward' and 'space' (from Latin 'spatium' via Old French) meant 'room, interval'.

'backspace' originally appeared as the hyphenated form 'back-space' in contexts like typewriters and teleprinters to denote moving the carriage/head backward; it later became the single word 'backspace' in computing to name the key and the delete action.

Initially it referred to the mechanical action of moving a print head or carriage backward; over time it came to mean the keyboard key and the electronic action of deleting the character before the cursor.