backstreet

comparative more backstreet · superlative most backstreet · alternative back-street

1. Associated with neighborhoods on back streets, often in older neighborhoods, with poorer residents.

   She's been living in her uptown world / I bet she's never had a backstreet guy / I bet her momma never told her why

   1983, “Uptown Girl”, in Billy Joel (music), An Innocent Man

   2 more examples

   The agency was given to some deserving politician who, as he knew nothing at all about Indians and spoke no language except traces of back-street American, would not be prejudiced in Indian affairs and interfere with the highly informed traders.

   1949, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 18, in The God-Seeker, New York: Popular Library, page 94

   They made these things for almost nothing, cutting them out of remnants they scrambled for in backstreet fabric outlets.

   1989, Carol Shields, “Times of Sickness and Health”, in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, published 2004, page 349

2. figurativelyDone in poor and unsanitary conditions, secretly and illegally; back-alley.

   The results of self-induced and backstreet abortions come to our hospitals for the damage to be put right.

   1965 June 15, Renée Short, Hansard

plural backstreets · alternative back-street

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of back street.