Final answer:
The term that refers to something being towards the back of the body is 'posterior,' also known as 'dorsal'. This positional term is distinct from 'distal,' 'proximal,' and 'lateral,' which describe other directions or positions relative to the body's attachment points or sides.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term that refers to something that is toward the back of the body is posterior. The posterior term is also often referred to as dorsal. This term is used when describing the position of body parts with respect to their location towards the backside of the body structure. For example, in humans, the backbone is posterior to the chest. To remember this, you might think of the word posterior as being related to the rearmost part of something, much like the posterior of an animal's body.
In contrast, the other terms such as distal, proximal, and lateral relate to different positional descriptions. Distal describes a position farther from the point of attachment or the trunk of the body. For instance, the fingers are distal to the wrist. Proximal, on the other hand, is the opposite and describes a position nearer to the point of attachment or the trunk of the body, such as the shoulder is proximal to the elbow. Lastly, lateral refers to the side or direction toward the side of the body, such as when saying the ears are lateral to the nose.