back-alley
adjective
dirty, unprepossessing, sordid, or clandestine.
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back-alley
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back alley
back alleysee under back street.
back-alley
American
[bak-al-ee]
/ ˈbækˈæl i /
adjective
back alley
Idioms
Etymology
Origin of back-alley
An Americanism dating back to 1860–65
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.
Bickerstaff was referring to a time-honored tradition of Detroit basketball: Turning a hard court ballet into a back-alley brawl.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026
In Coralie Fargeat’s blood-soaked fable about fear and self-loathing in Hollywood, Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a faded star who submits to a back-alley rejuvenation regime to reset her career.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 12, 2024
In this country, before abortion was legal, women went to both reputable doctors and back-alley quacks to get care.
From Slate • Nov. 7, 2023
As a result, the illicit abortions that were once invisible — the back-alley abortions before Roe v.
From New York Times • Dec. 8, 2022
At the university, just a few miles from his back-alley boardinghouse on Invalidenstrasse, Mendel began to experience the intellectual baptism that he had so ardently sought in Brno.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
