Back·stairs, Back·stair , a. Private; indirect; secret; conducted with secrecy; intriguing; -- as if finding access by the back stairs; as, backstairs gossip.
  Syn: -- clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, on the quiet(predicate), secret, subterranean, surreptitious, undercover, underground.
     A backstairs influence.   --Burke.
     Female caprice and backstair influence.   --Trevelyan.
  ◄ ►
  backstair
       adj : secret and sly or sordid; "backstairs gossip"; "his low
             backstairs cunning"- A.L.Guerard; "backstairs
             intimacies"; "furtive behavior" [syn: backstairs, furtive]