Backbone (The)

The main stay.

“Sober … . practical men … constitute the moral backbone of the country.”—W. Booth: In Darkest England (Part i. 2, p. 17).

To the backbone. Thoroughly, as true to the backbone.

“A union man, and a nationalist to the backbone.”—T. Roosevelt: T. H. Benton, chap. v. p. 113.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.