backseat

Other forms: backseats

When you ride in the backseat of a car, you sit in the row of seats behind the driver. Kids sometimes fight over the front seat, not wanting to sit in the backseat.

You can travel in the backseat of a automobile, unless you're the driver or are riding in a two-seat sports car. Another way to use the word backseat is to describe "an inferior position." If you take a backseat to your older brother, it means he tends to get all the attention. The word, more commonly written as back seat, was used in the 1800s to talk about riding in coaches and carriages.

Definitions of backseat

1. noun

   a seat at the back of a vehicle (especially the seat at the back of an automobile)
   types:

   dickey, dickey-seat, dickie, dickie-seat, dicky, dicky-seat

   a small third seat in the back of an old-fashioned two-seater

   type of:

   seat

   any support where you can sit (especially the part of a chair or bench etc. on which you sit)
2. noun

   a secondary or inferior position or status
   “tennis has had to take a backseat while his work is so demanding”

   type of:

   inferiority, lower rank, lower status

   the state of being inferior