Crossword clues for setback
setback
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Setback \Set"back`\ (s[e^]t"b[a^]k`), n.
(Arch.) Offset, n., 4.
A backset; a countercurrent; an eddy. [U. S.]
A reversal of progress in an endeavor; a reverse; a backset; a check; a repulse; a relapse. [Colloq. U.S.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 An obstacle, delay, or disadvantage. 2 (context US English) The required distance between a structure and a road. 3 (context architecture English) A step-like recession in a wall.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A setback, sometimes called step-back, is a step-like recession in a wall. Setbacks were initially used for structural reasons, but now are often mandated by land use codes, or are used for aesthetical reasons. In densely built-up areas, setbacks also help get more daylight and fresh air to the street level.
In land use, a setback is the distance which a building or other structure is set back from a street or road, a river or other stream, a shore or flood plain, or any other place which is deemed to need protection. Depending on the jurisdiction, other things like fences, landscaping, septic tanks, and various potential hazards or nuisances might be regulated. Setbacks are generally set in municipal ordinances or zoning. Setbacks along state, provincial, or federal highways may also be set in the laws of the state or province, or the federal government.
Homes usually have a setback from the property boundary, so that they cannot be placed close together. Setbacks may also allow for public utilities to access the buildings, and for access to utility meters. In some municipalities, setbacks are based on street right-of-ways, and not the front property line. Nonetheless, many of the world's cities, such as those built in the US before 1916 and the beginnings of zoning in the United States, do not employ setbacks. Zoning –and laws pertaining to site development, such as setbacks for front lawns– has been criticized recently by urban planners (most notably Jane Jacobs) for the role that these laws have played in producing urban sprawl and automobile-dependent, low-density cities.
Older houses have smaller setbacks between properties, as walking was a primary mode of transportation and the distance people walked to actual destinations and, eventually, streetcar stops had to be kept short out of necessity. Distances of one to five feet at most are common in neighborhoods built in the United States before 1890, when the electric streetcar first became popular. Most suburbs laid out before 1920 have narrow lots and setbacks of five to fifteen feet between houses. As automobile ownership became common, setbacks increased further because zoning laws required developers to leave large spaces between the house and street. Recently, in some areas of the United States, setback requirements have been lowered so as to permit new homes and other structures to be closer to the street, one facet of the low impact development urban design movement. This permits a more usable rear yard and limits new impervious surface areas for the purposes of stormwater infiltration.
Mailboxes, on the other hand, often have a maximum setback instead of a minimum one. A postal administration or postmaster may mandate that if a mailbox on a street is too far from the curb for the letter carrier to insert mail, without having to get out of the vehicle, the mail may not be delivered to that address at all until the situation is corrected.
Setback or Setbacks may have the following meanings:
- Setback (land use), the distance a structure must be from the edge of a lot
- Setback (architecture), making upper storeys of a high-rise building further back than the lower ones for aesthetic, structural, or land-use restriction reasons
- Pitch (card game), a card game related to All Fours
- A problem
- Setback arming, a safety-arming mechanism used on some munition fuzes
- Setbacks (album)
Usage examples of "setback".
Penn Brown is searching for a way onto the ice, but the cliffs that loom above them, although terraced, rise up from the floor of the chasma in setbacks fifty meters high.
And so the superstition fed upon the results, since a house weakened would suffer setbacks, and so seem to be in the disfavor of the gods.
He was a callow youth with a simple idea of lawbreaking and had suffered no setbacks in the wars of love.
This setback had in no way deterred the mujahedin and at first the operation had gone extremely well.
But on second thought, after careful reconsideration, Bonelli reed that the setback to his military arm might be a blessing in disguise.
Then Vern Feck brought his linebackers over and we got Randy King to center for us so we could practice defending against the blitz, two setbacks and the center against blitz variations by the three linebackers.
The anxiety resulting from this setback interrupted my dreaming practices altogether.
Despite the setbacks Jacen had engineered with the dhuryam-the World Brain-the Yuuzhan Vong shapers seemed to be making headway.
Instead, unseen setbacks such as labor shortages, food scarcity, and changing social patterns greatly affected the marketplace.
Her reactions to their setbacks grew more heated, as if disrespect of the Vipers was disrespect of her.
Ingrith, she who was patron of weavers and benefactor to every person who has faced down and wrestled with an unexpected setback.
Rumors that Austen had a history of periodic bouts of depression and that he had experienced recent financial setbacks and was facing an impending lawsuit from a former patient led authorities to speculate that he committed suicide.
The dissemination of Intertech's antimutagen was only a setback, not a defeat.
It had been a progressive emergence of intelligence, some cultures having arisen on worlds where, for one reason or another, the pace of evolutionary change was slower than the norm, or life's ascendancy was subject to more than the usual quota of catastrophic setbacks.
It's all my fault, she thought, trying to ease her conscience by reminding herself of all the glum NASA press conferences of the past year—the space station setbacks, the postponement of the X-33, all the failed Mars probes, continuous budget bailouts.