The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage - Noel's ESL ...

B
bacillus For the plural of this word, see under -us section 1.
back- This is a formative element in quite a few English compound words:
backbench background backhand backlash backlog backslider backstroke
backwash backwater
Back- serves to indicate location or direction, and like other adverbs and particles
it is normally set solid with the word it’s prefixed to. (See hyphens section 2b.)
As the examples above show, it normally combines with ordinary English stems,
whereas retro-, its classical equivalent, combines with scholarly words from Latin
and Greek: see further under retro-.
back matter See endmatter.
back of This collocation has wider currency in Australia than in Britain, in fixed
expressions like back of beyond, back of Bourke, back o’ Cairns and back o’ the
sunset, as well as in ones made up freely:
back of Mudgee back of Holland’s property back of the silos back of the
irrigation channel
It means “beyond” rather than strictly “behind”.
Note that the expression in back of meaning “behind” is still American rather
than Australian English, and does not mean “in the back of”. For Americans in
back of the shop means “outside and behind the shop”. In fact their use of in back
of complements in front of, in exactly the way we use it. But because in back of may
be misunderstood in Australia, we need to replace it with behind or in the back of
as appropriate.
backformation New words are most often developed from smaller, simple
words, as rattler is from rattle and assassination from assassin. Just occasionally
words (especially verbs) are formed in the opposite way, distilled out of pre-existing
words which are construed as complex ones (see further under complex words). So
burgle is from burglar, surveil from surveillance, and electrocute from electrocution.
Some other verbs derived in this way are:
donate edit enthuse laze liaise reminisce resurrect scavenge stoke
swindle televise
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