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plural backcloths
The painted scenery at the back of a stage; the backdrop. quotations examples
Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved; but we passed various places - trading places - with names like Gran’ Bassam, Little Popo, names that seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister backcloth.
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 203