Backstroke is swimming on your back with alternating arms. Swim backstroke, the backstroke final, a backstroke turn.
It is the only competitive stroke swum on the back and the only one started in the water rather than from the blocks. Swimmers cannot see where they are going, so flags across the pool five metres from each end tell them when to turn. It is slower than front crawl and butterfly and faster than breaststroke. Note the four strokes of the medley.
1nounbackstrokeSwimming on your back with alternating arms.
“The backstroke leg is about fifty metres.”
backstroke is a swimming stroke.
Back plus stroke, a plain compound. Stroke here means one complete movement of the arms, as it does in rowing.
From back + stroke.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA