behind the scenes
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Happening secretly or out of public view
Literally: in a area hidden from audience
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She catalogues some of the services guests now take for granted, and which require electronic equipment working behind the scenes.
Before dealing with these, Mr Fazio must first heal the wounds within the Bank that have been caused by the behind - the - scenes battle to succeed Mr Ciampi.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “behind the scenes” mean?
Happening secretly or out of public view Literally: in a area hidden from audience
Is “behind the scenes” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“sau cánh gà” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.