Word.ws English Dictionary

back channels

back channels is the plural of back channel.

Meaning of back channel

Noun

back channel (plural back channels)

  1. The smaller of two channels in a river that diverge to form an island.
  2. A secondary channel of activity, typically in parallel with primary channels and somewhat independent of them.
  3. An unofficial communications channel used to make informal or subversive negotiations.
  4. A real-time online discussion that occurs simultaneously with a verbal presentation.
    • TodaysMeet visualizes collaborative and parallel conversations in a backchannel through a digital classroom where every student has a voice.2017, Di Zou, James Lambert, “Feedback methods for student voice in the digital age”, in British Journal of Educational Technology, volume 48, number 5, page 1083
  5. A gesture or short prompt by which a listener invites a speaker to continue.

Questions about back channels

What is back channels the plural of?
Back channels is the plural of back channel.

Words near back channels in the dictionary

  1. back catalog
  2. back catalogs
  3. back catalogue
  4. back catalogues
  5. back channel
  6. back channels
  7. back chat
  8. back chats
  9. back chatted
  10. back chatting
  11. back comb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back channels (page history and authors); back channel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “back channels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/back_channels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.