How to Use back channel in a Sentence

back channel

noun
Definition of back channelnext
  • Through back channels, those teams have gotten the brush-off from the Spurs.
    — Sean Meagher, OregonLive.com, 10 May 2018
  • This makes the meeting at least the second time the back channel was brought up.
    — Elizabeth Drew, The New Republic, 8 Mar. 2018
  • Over the past few weeks there have been hints that back channel talks were bridging gaps.
    — Nic Robertson, CNN, 26 Mar. 2018
  • What’s not entirely clear is what the back channel would have been for.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 8 Mar. 2018
  • Nixon was relying on Yahya as a back channel to the Chinese.
    — Washington Post, 15 Apr. 2022
  • Why was a back channel to the Kremlin deemed so important?
    — Elizabeth Drew, The New Republic, 8 Mar. 2018
  • Still, once in office, Mr. Trump used him as a back channel to the Chinese leadership.
    — David E. Sanger, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2023
  • What’s to stop a big-name school going back channel and offering the family a pile of NIL dough?
    — oregonlive, 2 Dec. 2022
  • And a jury found that Trump’s dirty trickster, Roger Stone, lied about the true nature of his back channel to the Russian hack-and-leak effort.
    — Marcy Wheeler, The New Republic, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Trades could be lined up, or soon-to-be free agents who have signaled their interest through back channels.
    — David Murphy, Philly.com, 31 May 2018
  • According to the indictment, in May 2016, Barrack agreed to serve as a back channel between the Emiratis and the Trump campaign.
    — Rebecca Davis O'Brien, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Henry Kissinger used to meet regularly with Putin as a back channel.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2022
  • Oman has long served as a bridge between countries in the region, including as a back channel between the U.S. and Iran ahead of talks that led to the 2015 nuclear deal.
    — Felicia Schwartz, WSJ, 26 Oct. 2018
  • Finally, five years and four months after Mr. Shalit was captured, their back channel bore fruit.
    — Patrick Kingsley, New York Times, 19 Nov. 2023
  • Neither side is keen to advertise the existence of these back channels.
    — Isobel Koshiw, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023
  • In 2017, it was reported that the Trump administration tried to set up a back channel with Syria to free Austin Tice.
    — Caitlin Yilek, Washington Examiner, 27 Jan. 2020
  • Immediately after the meeting, Khalilzad’s team in Doha, which had been in the loop about the back channel, received two calls.
    — New York Times, 10 Dec. 2021
  • The mission consists of the only North Korean diplomats in the United States, and they have been used as a diplomatic back channel for years.
    — Sophie Haigney, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Jan. 2018
  • Farah, according to Hutchinson, agreed to serve as a back channel to the committee to provide it with the right questions to ask when Hutchinson returned.
    — Bart Jansen, USA TODAY, 22 Dec. 2022
  • As the Marjorie C passes under the new bridge spanning the back channel, its cables lit blue against the gray sky, the pilot orders the Teresa to change position.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2021
  • If Ghani had in fact agreed to a deal with the Taliban through Rahimi’s back channel, then the meeting was mostly political theater.
    — New York Times, 10 Dec. 2021
  • Without a two-way cable network, a standard analog modem must be used as a back channel.
    — Popular Mechanics, 7 Feb. 2019
  • There are walleye fish and back channel messages with a Costco manager.
    — New York Times, 9 June 2021
  • Over the summer, the governor took pains to avoid overtly criticizing Mr. Biden and instead focused on pushing the White House for more help through back channels.
    — Luis Ferré-Sadurní, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2023
  • Acting as a diplomatic back channel, Cairo brokered a cease-fire to end the 11-day conflict and earned American plaudits for doing so.
    — Taylor Luck, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 June 2021
  • Players usually can learn through back channels whom the manager will be, or at least the most likely candidates.
    — Henry Schulman, SFChronicle.com, 25 Sep. 2019
  • Our move should be to warn the Russians directly, in public and via back channels, that such behavior will not be tolerated.
    — The Editors, National Review, 17 Mar. 2023
  • Abramovich reportedly hasn’t been sanctioned yet by the US because of his role as a potential back channel between Kyiv and Moscow.
    — Casey Michel, CNN, 26 Apr. 2022
  • Around that time, Giuliani, who had joined Trump’s legal team months earlier, began talks with individuals who were part of the back channel to Maduro.
    — Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2019
  • The idea that there’s a secret back channel has also circulated in European capitals, though officials deny knowing anything about it.
    — Bloomberg.com, 25 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'back channel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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