back door

back door

1. Literally, an entrance located at the back of a building or place. When you get here, just come in the back door—I'll leave it unlocked for you.
2. Describing something that is done in a deceptive, corrupt, or indirect manner, especially with the intention of reducing the visibility of an action. The school board is trying to rush this major change through the back door, and we need to fight them on it!
See also: back, door
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

back door

1. An entry at the rear of a building, as in Deliveries are supposed to be made at the back door only. [First half of 1500s]
2. A clandestine, unauthorized, or illegal way of operating. For example, Salesmen are constantly trying to push their products by offering special gifts through the back door . This term alludes to the fact that the back door cannot be seen from the front. [Late 1500s]
See also: back, door
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • back
  • back at (something or some place)
  • come back and see us
  • by the back door
  • by/through the back door
  • echo back to
  • be/go back to square one
  • a while back
  • back to square one
  • be back on the rails
References in periodicals archive
Though Feinstein has called on Silicon Valley to create back doors, no legislation has yet been introduced in the U.S.
Let's look at the Front Door, the Back Door and how a Supply Chain Management (SCM) professional can help capture the monies being lost to the company's bottom line.
A muddy footprint was also visible on the back door and the apartment had been trashed, police said.
When I walked through the back door, I entered a place where I was fed incessantly, listened to with rapt attention and doted on like I was the bee's knees, especially by my grandmother.
Yet, when a resident dies in a nursing home, typically the hallways are cleared and in an almost secretive way, the body is taken out the back doors to a waiting hearse, as if it were something to be ashamed of.
You may have felt safe when you signed up for Internet services or bought stuff online, but those online vendors have big back doors just waiting for us to walk through.
Take a good look at the Times Square area and notice the "back door" area on 41st Street where the Forest City Double Tree Hotel has an entrance next to the Milstein/Swig Weiler Arnow site.
At the new dementia assisted living center at Parkcliffe Eldercare Community in Toledo, Ohio, architects placed the "front door" on an enclosed courtyard for residents--their "front yard." A "back door" provides a discreet entrance for visitors and staff.
Steve Cram, Chris Brasher and Doug Ibbotsen, broke their silence and spoke of "back door money and brown envelopes."
In addition to the expanded wiretapping provisions, near-future proposals have included the criminalization of unbreakable encryption, the reintroduction of the infamous Clipper Chip (a government-sanctioned, NSA-sponsored encryption scheme that would contain a back door for law-enforcement decoding), publically unaccountable funding for Digital Telephony (which would give the FBI authority over the design of telecom networks to ensure effective surveillance capabilities), and even a constitutional amendment to criminalize "bomb-making" information on the Internet (information that is both legal and available on the printed page).
In the summer, we check them in at the back door. By staying on top of things, our vendor shrink is zero.
The Clipper Chip has a "back door" that allows government officials to tap and decode any messages encrypted with it.
[paragraph] In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, condominium managers ordered a couple to stop entering and leaving their unit through their back door, claiming that they were wearing an unsightly path in the lawn by taking a short cut to the parking lot.
Before Ann and Robbie Johannesen added an 18- by 24-foot deck off the rear of their hillside house, they had only a slim band of grass and a tiny stoop by their back door.
As the front of the car was submerged in water Mike was unable to open the driver's door and quickly opened the back door to allow water to fill and balance the car.