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.
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Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr founded StubHub in 2000 on a simple premise: buying secondhand tickets shouldn’t feel like a back-alley shakedown.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 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
After the pathetic back-alley drama, I headed to Burton’s pharmacy, which had been the real purpose of the trip downtown.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
The back-and-forth fosters confusion but also distrust, she said: "It further perpetuates the myth of like, the sketchy abortion doctor in the back alley."
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
The latter here is represented via a large puppet created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and the walk-through experience will take us from taverns to the back alley of a marketplace to the beholder’s lair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2025
“We can play a defensive game if we have to. And I think we can play a back alley game, too.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2025
Shawn Younker, incarcerated in Pennsylvania, writes, “We might as well be rummaging the dusty old leftovers in some thrift store or back alley dumpster.”
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2024
I wandered through the maze of empty streets, then down a winding back alley that dead-ended by the entrance of a small pizza shop.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
