Meanings
backrooms1
- pluralplural of backroom
Backrooms2
- InternetA fictional environment, originating from an online urban legend and creepypasta, consisting of a seemingly endless maze of empty hallways, often described as being inhabited by monsters, or having multiple levels or floors.
Threads are filled with talk of new levels that could sit above, below or beside the Backrooms, including pitch black tunnels and an abandoned hotel.
2022 March 29, Andrew Lloyd, “The Backrooms: How a Creepy Office Photo Became an Internet Bogeyman”, in VICE, archived from the original on 07 May 20231 more example
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in ¶ God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you
2019 May 12, 4chan, /x/, archived from the original on 12 Jan 2024
Origin
From backrooms. Coined by an anonymous poster on the 4chan /x/ board on May 12th, 2019 (see quotation below).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
backrooms. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backrooms
“backrooms.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backrooms. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “backrooms,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/backrooms.
Source: backrooms on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.