backwardness

To some, this will look like progress, a move away from the backwardness of rural life.

It gives you the sense of the forwardness of history as well as the backwardness.

A palpable desolation—and the feeling of what the Chinese call luohou, or backwardness—hangs in the air.

And who should not feel amazed at the backwardness of sinners to prepare for it—so free and beneficently offered?

The backwardness of printing in the Argentine at the time of the Revolution is a clear indication of the illiteracy of the people.

The one thing to criticize is the backwardness of the lives of the good folk of the isle and their enormous pieds plats.

He made acquaintances, slowly lost his backwardness, and presently found college life opening to him bright and beautiful.

(For age may qualify, though not excuse, The backwardness of these,) able young men!