assback

assback

English

Etymology

ass +‎ back

Noun

assback (plural assbacks)

1. The back of a donkey.
   • 1691, uncredited translators, Plutarch’s Morals, Part 2, London: T. Sawbridge et al., p. 224,

     […] they took her and set her on Ass-back, and led her round about the City,

   • 1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels Through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 74,

     The way of riding most used in this place is on assback.

   • 1846, Richard Ford, Gatherings from Spain, London: John Murray, Chapter 7, p. 74,

     Riding on assback was accounted a disgrace and a degradation to the Gothic hidalgo,

   • 1994, Robert Kelly, “In Irish America” in Queen of Terrors, Kingston, NY: McPherson, p. 56,

     […] tune soft as the assback my Savior rode from Jericho to Caerleon.

Adverb

assback (not comparable)

1. On the back of a donkey.
   • 1850, George Walker, Chess and Chess-Players, London: Charles J. Skeet, “A Game of Chess with Napoleon,” p. 260,

     […] I should have thought a great chief had something better to do than to play chess either horseback or assback.

   • 1970, Mark Perlberg, “Hiroshige” in The Burning Field, New York: William Morrow, p. 7,

     That samurai is surely fast alive

     In his hunched and silhouetted dozing, assback,

     In the blur of fog,