back-alley

adjective

back-al·​ley

1

: having a mean, furtive, or squalid character or air

back-alley gossip

2

: done secretly and illegally by someone using crude and dangerous methods

… postabortion distress (often caused by back-alley operations).

—Marguerite Holloway, Scientific American, April 2001

Word History

First Known Use

1894, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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