Behind someone’s back
Out of one’s presence or without someone’s knowledge, as in Joan has a nasty way of maligning her friends behind their backs. Sir Thomas Malory used this metaphoric term in Le Morte d’Arthur (c. 1470): “To say of me wrong or shame behind my back.” [ Early 1300s ]
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- Behind the curve
a continuously bending line, without angles. the act or extent of curving. any curved outline, form, thing, or part. a curved section of a road, path, hallway, etc. Railroads. a curved section of track: in the U.S. the curve is often expressed as the central angle, measured in degrees, of a curved section of track […]
- Behind the ears
behind the ears
- Behind the eight ball
Pool. a black ball bearing the number eight. a game in which one player or side must pocket all of either the solid-color balls or the striped ones before being permitted to attempt the pocketing of the eightball, which wins. Slang. an inept person. behind the eightball, Informal. in a difficult, disadvantageous, or uncomfortable situation: […]
- Behind the scenes
happening or conducted out of view of the general public: The behind-the-scenes preparations made the convention a huge success. held or kept privately by or among a few key or influential persons: behind-the-scenes negotiations. occurring backstage: the behind-the-scenes activities of the stage crew. the place where some action or event occurs: He returned to the […]
- Behind the times
the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another. duration regarded as belonging to the present life as distinct from the life to come or from eternity; finite duration. (sometimes initial capital letter) […]