Backstairs

Definitions: Backstairs

Backstairs

Adjective

1. Secret and sly or sordid; "backstairs gossip"; "his low backstairs cunning"- A.L.Guerard; "backstairs intimacies"; "furtive behavior".

Noun

1. A second staircase at the rear of a building.

Date "backstairs" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1726. (references)

Synonyms: Backstairs

Synonyms: backstair (adj), furtive (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Cunning	Diplomacy, politics; Machiavelism; jobbery, backstairs influence.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Backstairs

English words defined with "backstairs": Back stairs, backstair ♦ furtive. (references)

Domain	Usage
Movie/TV Titles	Backstairs at the White House (1979)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	A backstairs to a degree : demands for an open university in late Victorian England (reference) Backstairs at the White House (reference) Backstairs Life in a Country House (reference) Backstairs Mission in Moscow (American Autobiography) (reference) Backstairs With Upstairs, Downstairs (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
George Meredith	Memoirs are the backstairs of history.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Backstairs" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 90.91% of the time. "Backstairs" is used about 22 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (plural)	90.91%	20	78,262
Lexical Verb (-s form)	9.09%	2	245,945
Total	100.00%	22	N/A

Expressions using "backstairs": backstairs influence ♦ backstairs novels ♦ backstairs talk ♦ get a job through backstairs influence. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "backstairs": backstairs-gossip.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "backstairs"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		shkallë shërbimi. (various references)

Bulgarian		задна стълба. (various references)

Czech		schodištì (ghat, stair, staircase, stairway, step). (various references)

French		escalier de service. (various references)

German		Hintertreppe (back stairs, stairback). (various references)

Greek		σκάλα υπηρεσίασ. (various references)

Hungarian		hátsó lépcsõ. (various references)

Indonesian		tangga rahasia. (various references)

Italian		scala di servizio. (various references)

Manx		greeishyn cooyl. (various references)

Pig Latin		ackstairsbay.(various references)

Portuguese		escada de servic,o, escada de serviço. (various references)

Romanian		scarã din dos, ascuns (abstruse, blind, cagey, close, concealed, covert, cryptic, dark, furtive, hidden, masked, mystic, occult, postern, privy, q.t., quiet, recondite, secluded, secret, secretive, self contained, sneaking, stealthy, sunken, ulterior, uncommunicative, underground, underhand, undiscovered). (various references)

Russian		черная лестница (service stair). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		sporedne stepenice. (various references)

Spanish		secreto (arcane, back door, classified, covert, crypt, cryptic, dark, hidden, hugger mugger, inside, privacy, private, privy, secrecy, secret, sub rosa, under wraps, underground, unseen), sórdido (seamy, seedy, sleazy, slummy, sordid), escalera de servicio, escalera de atras. (various references)

Swedish		baktrappa. (various references)

Turkish		gizli yapılan (clandestine), gizli iş çevrilen yol, el altından olan, arka merdiven. (various references)

Ukranian		та�"мний (arcane, back door, clandestine, close, closet, colorable, colourable, covert, cryptic, esoteric, hideaway, hole-and-corner, hugger mugger, hush hush, invisible, mystic, occult, occulted, offscreen, private, secret, sly, sneaking, stealthy, subterranean, surreptitious, undercover), закулісні інтриги, закулісний (back door, back room, backstage, behind the scenes, offscreen, offstage), залаштунковий, задні сходи, боковий вхід. (various references)

Vietnamese		bí mật (clandestine, close, cryptic, cryptically, hush-hush, inward, inwards, private, subterranean, subterraneous, surreptitious, undercover, underground), mưu mô lém lút, lén lút (hedge, hole-and-corner, rose, sideling, sneaking, sneaky, stealth, stealthy, surreptitious), kín (confidential, hush-hush, inward, inwards, tight, unapparent), ẩn (latent). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Misspellings
	"Backstairs" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: backstar, Bakhtiari, bakhtir. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "backstairs" (pronounced ba"kste'rz)
3	-e' r z	airfares, armchairs, forebears, housewares, legionnaires, nightmares, somewheres, thoroughfares, wheelchairs.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-b-c-i-k-r-s-s-t"
	-2 letters: brassica, britskas.
	-3 letters: aristas, ascaris, britska, caritas, casitas, karstic, racists, sacrist, scarabs, stricks, tarsias.
	-4 letters: abatis, arabic, arista, basics, batiks, bracts, bricks, brisks, carats, casita, cassia, crasis, crissa, crista, kabars, karats, karsts, kraits, rabats, racist, riatas, sabirs, sabras, scarab, scarts, sistra, sitars, skirts, stacks, stairs, sticks, stirks, strick, tarsia, tiaras, tracks, traiks, triacs, tricks.
	-5 letters: abaci, aback, abris, acari, airts, araks, arias, arsis, assai, astir, atria, backs, baits, baric, barks, basic, basis, basks, bassi, basts, batik, birks, bisks, bract, brass, brats, brick, brisk, brits, carat, carbs, carks, carts, casas, casks, casts, cists, crabs, crass, cribs, ikats, isbas, kabar, karat, karst, karts, katas, kbars, kists, krait, rabat, rabic, racks, raias, rakis, riata, ricks, risks, sabir, sabra, sacks, sacra, sakis, saris, sarks, satis, scabs, scars, scart, scats, sicks, sitar, skats, skirt, skits, stabs, stack, stair, stark, stars, stick, stirk, stirs, stria, tacks, takas, tarsi, tasks, tiara, ticks, track, traik, trass, triac, trick, tsars.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-b-c-i-k-r-s-s-t"
	+5 letters: backscatterings.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.