broken-backed
- s having the spine damaged
a broken-backed book
a broken-backed old horse - s (of a horse) having bones of the back united by a bony growth
- s (of a ship) so weakened as to sag at each end
- Few living things can travel a mile faster than the men and women who, hunched over their skates like broken-backed dolls, swoop around an oval of ice at more than 30 m.
- Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of Britain called Milosevic "a beaten, broken-backed President.