back door
Britishnoun
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a door at the rear or side of a building
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a means of entry to a job, position, etc, that is secret, underhand, or obtained through influence
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( as modifier )
a backdoor way of making firms pay more
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An entry at the rear of a building, as in Deliveries are supposed to be made at the back door only . [First half of 1500s]
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A clandestine, unauthorized, or illegal way of operating. For example, Salesmen are constantly trying to push their products by offering special gifts through the back door . This term alludes to the fact that the back door cannot be seen from the front. [Late 1500s]
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.
They escaped out a back door as the fire took hold.
From BBC • May 13, 2026
The hackers hadn’t only unlocked a back door into millions of home networks—they had also created a way to break into thousands of corporations.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026
Gil hustled to the back of the store, opened the back door to the encampment, and called out to the entire population.
From Slate • Mar. 25, 2026
Rudra Bahadur Kami returned to Nepal through a back door of Kathmandu airport in a battered coffin after working for more than a decade in Saudi Arabia to feed his family back home.
From Barron's • Feb. 16, 2026
Anya let Ilana pull her through the kitchen, bustling with even more people, out a back door and into a walled courtyard.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
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.
