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What Do You Call an Alleyway?

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Until I moved to Yorkshire I had never heard of the following words to describe an alleyway

Ginnel or Gennel

Snicket or Snickelways

What do you call an alleyway?

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beccatavender
over a year ago
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heatherduthie

A laney

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Ann1984

Lane

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angelik

I call it an alleyway or sometimes just an alley. I haven't heard of those other words for it.

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emmabeckz
LD Team

In Liverpool we call it the jigger or the entry

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davidstockport

In Manchester they were usually called entries too, but I'd never heard them called jiggers.

I assume they were called entries because the back doors were used more than the front doors to enter houses.

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emmabeckz
LD Team

davidstockport Jigger - a back entry or alley, recorded since 1902 - the word jig was often used to refer to something small or narrow, and it developed several slang uses, such as a narrow door, a prison cell, an illegal distillery, and (as in Liverpool) a narrow passageway

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emmabeckz
LD Team

We also say Jigger Rabbit for a cat - my little boy was upset when my Dad said come and see the jigger rabbit to find it was a black cat!😆

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davidstockport

emmabeckz I recall jiggered was also another way of saying knackered or buggered.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/jiggered

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Dennab

I didn't know you were a Scouser, not that it matters but I had the assumption that you would all be Southern. I've never heard it called the jigger!

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emmabeckz
LD Team

Dennab calm down our kid! Yes I am from Liverpool currently living just over the Welsh border but I don’t have a twang!

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Dennab

emmabeckz Hahaha eh eh eh that's boss soft lad. You're not far from me then. I was looking at houses over that way - better value for money! I still can't believe I've never heard the word jigger.

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SilverSurfer

emmabeckz A Jigger where I live is what you go to have in the alley not the alley lol.

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dawarwick

I’ve heard ginnel or snicket used in the north of Britain

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Dennab

Those words are made up, surely 😀

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Lynibis

Dennab they use ginnel a lot on coronation street, don't watch soaps any more though.

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Dennab

Lynibis I've never heard them say that! I appear to have lived a very sheltered life. It's Hollyoaks in this household 😁

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TractorGirl327

An alley.

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tara73ziva

I have heard of a ginnel but we’re I live we just call it an alley

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Mick82

I remember an old lady that lived near me she called it her back passage

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dawarwick

Mick82 ooo err Missus Image

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Leannexxx

Ginnel that's why we have always called them

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eyeballkerry

Always been called an alleyway where I come from. Saying that when I watch coronation street that’s where I learnt the word ginnel.

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cocolgooh

Ginnel where I live now in the north but alley or back alley where I used to live in the south.

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Dennab

I feel a bit boring calling it an alley now.

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beccatavender

I come from Wales so when people were giving me directions in York, I thought they were talking another language 😀

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Dennab

beccatavender Just add t' on words

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davewalsh126

Dennab Yorkshire for "It isn't located within the metal container": T'int in Tin

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Dennab
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kimcress

Snicket, cut through, alley.

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davewalsh126

a ginnel

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SarahHorsfield

Alleyway

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stevea808

An alleyway.

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TheChimp

Never heard of most of these sayings, but MrsChimp says that they call in a ginnel where she comes from.

Always been an alley for me.

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chaz32luna

Ginnel

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MrsCraig

It's known as a close where I am from. So people would say they live at the end of the close and it meant they were the house at the end of the alley. Never called it anything else.

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CaroleGreen

Called a plain old 'cut' in Cambridgeshire.

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lilminxymoo

Ginnel or a snicket (I'm in Yorkshire 🙂)

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hspexy

It’s an alley or an alleyway. Any other names being used would just confuse me

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