background

Plural: backgrounds

Noun

• a person's social heritage: previous experience or training
  • "he is a lawyer with a sports background"
• the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
  • "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
• information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
  • "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
• extraneous signals that can be confused with the phenomenon to be observed or measured
  • "they got a bad connection and could hardly hear one another over the background signals"
• relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation
  • "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
• the state of the environment in which a situation exists
• (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
• scenery hung at back of stage
• One's social heritage, or previous life; what one did in the past.
• A part of the picture that depicts scenery to the rear or behind the main subject; context.
• An extra who appears in the background, with no speaking role.
• Information relevant to the current situation about past events; history.
• A less important feature of scenery (as opposed to foreground).
• The image or color over which a computer's desktop items are shown (e.g. icons or application windows).
• A type of activity on a computer that is not normally visible to the user.
• Ellipsis of background radiation.

Verb

• understate the importance or quality of
• To place in the background.
• To put in a position that is not prominent.
• To gather and provide background information (on).
• To increase the weight and immunity of (a calf) by feeding with forage and grains, as an intermediate stage in cattle production, between weaning and placement in a feedlot.
• simple past and past participle of backgrind

Adj

• Less important or less noticeable in a scene or system.

Examples

• background noise
• low-background
• The antivirus program is running in the background.
• The antivirus program runs on a background thread.
• The lawyer had a background in computer science.
• The photographer let us pick a background for the portrait.
• There was tons of noise in the background.

Synonyms

backcloth, backdrop, background knowledge, background signal, desktop, downplay, ground, play down, scope, screen background, setting

Antonyms

foreground, play up, conspicuous, forestanding, primary, prominent

Anagrams of background