"behind someone's back" meaning in English

See behind someone's back in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: en-au-behind someone's back.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=behind someone's back}} behind someone's back, {{en-prep phrase|behind someone's back}} behind someone's back
  1. (idiomatic) Without somebody's knowledge; secretly. Tags: idiomatic Translations (secretly): selän takana (Finnish), dans le dos de (French), à l’insu de (French), hinter jemandes Rücken (German), hinterrücks [adverbial, also] (German), a háta mögött (Hungarian), di belakang (Indonesian), alle spalle (Italian), pelas costas (Portuguese), за глаза́ (za glazá) (Russian), a espaldas de alguien (Spanish), por la puerta de atrás (Spanish), bakom någons rygg (Swedish), bakom ryggen på någon (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-behind_someone's_back-en-prep_phrase-xc31tZSq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for behind someone's back meaning in English (3.1kB)

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        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": "behind someone's back"
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      "expansion": "behind someone's back",
      "name": "head"
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    {
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        "1": "behind someone's back"
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      "expansion": "behind someone's back",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The employees talked about their boss behind his back.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "You will lose good karma if you say bad things behind people's backs.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1974, Tunji Oyelana (lyrics and music), “Which Way Africa”",
          "text": "Giant machines, precision tools, monster missiles, and all such [they] did lack.\nIndeed, the last industrial revolution happened behind their back.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Violent Femmes (lyrics and music), “Kiss Off”, in Violent Femmes",
          "text": "You can all just kiss off into the air / Behind my back I can see them stare / They'll hurt me bad, but I won't mind / They'll hurt me bad, they do it all the time",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Without somebody's knowledge; secretly."
      ],
      "id": "en-behind_someone's_back-en-prep_phrase-xc31tZSq",
      "links": [
        [
          "secretly",
          "secretly"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Without somebody's knowledge; secretly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "selän takana"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "dans le dos de"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "à l’insu de"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "hinter jemandes Rücken"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "tags": [
            "adverbial",
            "also"
          ],
          "word": "hinterrücks"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "a háta mögött"
        },
        {
          "code": "id",
          "lang": "Indonesian",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "di belakang"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "alle spalle"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "pelas costas"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "za glazá",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "за глаза́"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "a espaldas de alguien"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "por la puerta de atrás"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "bakom någons rygg"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "secretly",
          "word": "bakom ryggen på någon"
        }
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "behind someone's back"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The employees talked about their boss behind his back.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "You will lose good karma if you say bad things behind people's backs.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1974, Tunji Oyelana (lyrics and music), “Which Way Africa”",
          "text": "Giant machines, precision tools, monster missiles, and all such [they] did lack.\nIndeed, the last industrial revolution happened behind their back.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Violent Femmes (lyrics and music), “Kiss Off”, in Violent Femmes",
          "text": "You can all just kiss off into the air / Behind my back I can see them stare / They'll hurt me bad, but I won't mind / They'll hurt me bad, they do it all the time",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Without somebody's knowledge; secretly."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic) Without somebody's knowledge; secretly."
      ],
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      "tags": [
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "selän takana"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "dans le dos de"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "à l’insu de"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "hinter jemandes Rücken"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "tags": [
        "adverbial",
        "also"
      ],
      "word": "hinterrücks"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "a háta mögött"
    },
    {
      "code": "id",
      "lang": "Indonesian",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "di belakang"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "alle spalle"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "pelas costas"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "za glazá",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "за глаза́"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "a espaldas de alguien"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "por la puerta de atrás"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "bakom någons rygg"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "secretly",
      "word": "bakom ryggen på någon"
    }
  ],
  "word": "behind someone's back"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.