backpack

• back pack

From back + pack.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbæk.pæk/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

backpack (plural backpacks)

1. A knapsack, sometimes mounted on a light frame, but always supported by straps, worn on a person’s back for the purpose of carrying things, especially when hiking, or on a student's back when carrying books.
   • 2011, Thelma J. Miller, What's in Your Backpack?, page 8:

     Rachel discovered that she could also keep things in her backpack that were important to her, nobody would know about them because they would be hidden. These important things included a small round rock that she had found […]

   • 2022 November 30, Paul Bigland, “Destination Oban: a Sunday in Scotland”, in RAIL, number 971, page 77:

     Many seats carry reservation labels, while the luggage racks are festooned with backpacks and suitcases.

2. A similarly placed item containing a parachute or other life support equipment.

• book bag, bookbag
• booksack (Acadiana)
• haversack
• knapsack (chiefly US)
• packsack (chiefly US)
• rucksack (UK, Northeastern US)

• creel (shoulder-slung types)

• → Japanese: バックパック (bakkupakku)
• → Korean: 백팩 (baekpaek)

backpack (third-person singular simple present backpacks, present participle backpacking, simple past and past participle backpacked)

1. (intransitive) To hike and camp overnight in backcountry with one's gear carried in a backpack.

   I spent a month backpacking in the Rockies.

2. (intransitive) To engage in low-cost, generally urban, travel with minimal luggage and frugal accommodation.
3. (transitive, rare) To place or carry (an item or items) in a backpack.

   Astronauts backpack oxygen during spacewalks.

   • 2020, Akara September 2020 Magazine, page 103:

     I planned to go to jungle today and backpacked my things which contained^[sic] food and a note book.