alleyway
Americannoun
Usage
What is an alleyway? An alleyway is a narrow passage between buildings or other structures. Alleyway can also refer to a narrow path or passage behind a row of houses, such as one that allows access to garages and back yards. The word alley means the same thing. Example: We took a shortcut through the narrow alleyway between the shops.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of alleyway
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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“Boys in the alleyway, fondling marbles in their chilblained fingers or plotting Hurley Burley: these would remain foreign to him,” writes Li.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
Von Hassel was arrested in the previously vandalized alleyway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
Just after midnight on 1 May 1984, civil servant Anthony Littler stepped off a train at East Finchley station and set off down a dark alleyway towards home.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
As he sprinted down an alleyway in April 2020, former Whittier Det.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2025
The factionless lead us down the street and left into a grimy alleyway that stinks of garbage.
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
Yes, it overlooks a nest of alleyways, and no, management does not like people going up there, and no, I don’t know all my neighbors by name or even sight yet.
From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026
Residents have resorted to using orange cones to stop Waymos from driving through alleyways or onto the lots.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
You can still find vestiges of that past in the cobbled alleyways lined with pastel townhouses once owned by sea captains.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
In the labyrinthine alleyways of Cairo's Garbage City, recycling specialist Peter Romany finds himself fielding calls from factories scrambling for plastic to plug supply shortfalls caused by the Iran war.
From Barron's ● Jul. 18, 2026
There were alleyways and roads bordered by teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture, stowed away, perhaps, to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, or else hidden by castle-proud house-elves.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
