different between backstreet vs alleyway

English

Alternative forms

• back-street

Etymology

back +? street

Adjective

backstreet (comparative more backstreet, superlative most backstreet)

1. Associated with neighborhoods on back streets, often in older neighborhoods, with poorer residents.
   • 1949, Sinclair Lewis, The God-Seeker, New York: Popular Library, Chapter 18, p. 94,

     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.

   • 1989, Carol Shields, "Times of Sickness and Health" in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, 2004, p. 349,

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

2. (figuratively) Done in poor and unsanitary conditions, secretly and illegally; back-alley.
   • 1965, Renée Short, Hansard, 15 June, 1965, [1]

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

Further reading

• “backstreet abortion” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• “backstreet”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• “backstreet” (US) / “backstreet” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.

Noun

backstreet (plural backstreets)

1. Alternative spelling of back street

English

Etymology

alley +? way

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ.li.we?/

Noun

alleyway (plural alleyways)

1. A narrow street formed by the proximity of adjacent buildings.

   Synonyms: alley; see also Thesaurus:alley

2. A passage between two rows of cabins in a ship.

Translations

Further reading

• “alleyway”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.