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backbone has 15 distinct synonyms spread across 4 of its 5 senses. Each sense below keeps its own list, because a synonym belongs to a meaning and not to a word: swapping one sense's substitute into another sense's sentence is how a thesaurus makes writing worse. WordNet records no antonym for it — antonymy is a relation between word forms rather than concepts, so it is deliberately sparse.
Counts are distinct word forms across every sense. A synonym that appears under three senses is counted once here and shown three times below, under each sense it belongs to.
the series of vertebrae forming the axis of the skeleton and protecting the spinal cord
“the fall broke his back”
the part of a network that connects other networks together
“the backbone is the part of a communication network that carries the heaviest traffic”
Synonyms, antonyms and the broader and narrower relations for backbone come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Full sources and licences.