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definitions

back room

or back·room

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noun

a room located in the rear, especially one used only by certain people.
a place where powerful or influential persons, especially politicians, meet to plan secretly or from which they exercise control in an indirect manner: The candidate for mayor was chosen in the precincts' back rooms.

Origin of back room

First recorded in 1585–95
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for back room

Contemporary Examples of back room

  • A Rockefeller Republican-turned-Reaganite, Newt aspired to be a back-room apparatchik rather than a demagogue.

    The Daily Beast logo
    'An Evil-Looking Gnome'

    Bryan Curtis

    June 27, 2011

  • Though never convicted, he has always carried a certain, well, unsavory reputation as a crooked, back-room operator.

    The Daily Beast logo
    The Playboy Running Pakistan

    Nicholas Schmidle

    April 30, 2009

Historical Examples of back room

  • The back-room, which you see is also well lighted, is just the spot for our people to meet.

  • She pulled Gervaise by the skirt and dragged her into the back-room.

    L'Assommoir

    Emile Zola

  • If Mr. Soames would come into the back-room, he could see him through the door.

  • Clara then crept into the back-room, and he followed her with noiseless step.

    The Belton Estate

    Anthony Trollope

  • Susannah shall put a small bed into the back-room for Johnny.

British Dictionary definitions for back room

back room

noun

  1. a place where research or planning is done, esp secret research in wartime
  2. (as modifier)back-room boys
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012