BACK DOOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does back door mean? 

• BACK DOOR (noun)
  The noun BACK DOOR has 3 senses:

1. a secret or underhand means of access (to a place or a position)

2. an undocumented way to get access to a computer system or the data it contains

3. an entrance at the rear of a building

  Familiarity information: BACK DOOR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BACK DOOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A secret or underhand means of access (to a place or a position)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

back door; backdoor

Context example:

he got his job through the back door

Hypernyms ("back door" is a kind of...):

access (the act of approaching or entering)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An undocumented way to get access to a computer system or the data it contains

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

back door; backdoor

Hypernyms ("back door" is a kind of...):

access; access code (a code (a series of characters or digits) that must be entered in some way (typed or dialed or spoken) to get the use of something (a telephone line or a computer or a local area network etc.))

Sense 3

Meaning:

An entrance at the rear of a building

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

back door; back entrance; backdoor

Hypernyms ("back door" is a kind of...):

exterior door; outside door (a doorway that allows entrance to or exit from a building)

 Context examples 

Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She came in just now by the back door.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Undoubtedly by the garden path and the back door, from which there is direct access to the study.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she took off the hinges, and said, Frederick told me to lock the door, but surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The back door was open, and as he came to the foot of the stairs he saw two men wrestling together outside.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This frightened him dreadfully, and away he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

In the midst of this interview the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home, on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing near.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I can't speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn't know Daisy then—and I'll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)