back-alley
dirty, unprepossessing, sordid, or clandestine: back-alley morals; back-alley political schemes.
Origin of back-alley
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use back-alley in a sentence
I never want to return to the days of gruesome back-alley abortions.
Abortion Rights Community Has Become the NRA of the Left | Kirsten Powers | May 6, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAnd it happened with this modern-day back alley butcher in Philadelphia.
Just around the corner from stores like Chanel, Valentino, and Hermès—not exactly a back alley.
The execrable back alley was conducted on the pig-sty basis.
Revisiting the Earth | James Langdon HillLet not the atheist say that there is a child in the back alley dying.
The Golden Censer | John McGovern
How slatternly the old back alley fence would look now that the parking system is adopted by neighbors.
Revisiting the Earth | James Langdon HillThen, bleeding from his shoulder and with blood upon his beard, he made afresh for the passage leading to the back alley.
The Scapegoat | Hall CaineA man may live in the back alley of life or on the boulevard, according to the dictates of the spirit.
The Vitalized School | Francis B. Pearson
Other Idioms and Phrases with back-alley
see under back street.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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