Word.ws English Dictionary

back street

back street noun: a usually small and narrow street or alley, especially one in inferior or poorer parts of a city, away from the centre.

back street: a usually small and narrow street or alley, especially one in inferior or poorer parts of a city,...
Image: Collins Musonda, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

back street (plural back streets)

  1. A usually small and narrow street or alley, especially one in inferior or poorer parts of a city, away from the centre.
    • So much to do, so much to see
      So what's wrong with taking the back streets?
      You'll never know if you don't go
      You'll never shine if you don't glow1999 May 4, Greg Camp, “All Star”, in Astro Lounge, performed by Smash Mouth
  2. A secret, clandestine, or illegal scene.
    • Near-synonym: mean streets
    Synonyms:
    mean streets

Synonyms of back street

Antonyms

Forms of back street

pluralback streets

Words formed from back street

  • back-street abortion

Questions about back street

What does back street mean?
Back street means a usually small and narrow street or alley, especially one in inferior or poorer parts of a city, away from the centre.
What part of speech is back street?
Back street is a noun.
What is the plural of back street?
The plural of back street is back streets.

Words near back street in the dictionary

  1. back stamps
  2. back stories
  3. back story
  4. back straight
  5. back straights
  6. back street
  7. back streets
  8. back stretch
  9. back stretches
  10. back substitution
  11. back substitutions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back street (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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