backstreet

noun

back·​street ˈbak-ˈstrēt 

often attributive

: a street away from the main thoroughfares

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Consigned to the dim backstreets and nightclubs of Paris, in this life or the next, Jomo’s sister Udoka (Laëtitia Ky) matches Aleksei’s immigrant ennui and unrest. —Guy Lodge, Variety, 19 Feb. 2023

Step off the Marais backstreet and glide down a rabbit hole to a lair of comforting cuisine by Joao DaSilva and Vincent Bessy that packs up a punch, and is brought to guests by a cast of handsome staff dressed in flowing black outfits that deliver on-point service. —Rooksana Hossenally, Forbes, 18 Jan. 2022

Details of the project are being kept on a backstreet, but it can be described as a boy band reunion movie. —Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Feb. 2023

On the mezzanine of a tiny workshop in a narrow backstreet, a woman in her 20s is busy at a sewing machine. —Paul Richardson, Condé Nast Traveler, 23 Jan. 2023

Ken Fallas, a Costa Rican architect who has worked in Seoul for the past eight years, watched stunned as a dozen or more unconscious partygoers were carried out from a narrow backstreet packed with youngsters dressed like movie characters. —Hyung-jin Kim, BostonGlobe.com, 31 Oct. 2022

Behind a Mexican restaurant in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood lies an industrial backstreet where people like to hang out after work. —Joshua Sharpe, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Sep. 2022

In 1946, one enterprising local, Ganga Bishan Agarwal, began selling the snack from a humble shop in a Bikaner backstreet. —Shalba Sarda, CNN, 11 Sep. 2022

Video shows the suspect speeding the wrong way down a one-way backstreet, veering into the woman and her 8-month-old son in a stroller at around 8:40 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2021. —Fox News, 6 June 2022

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Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above