background

Meanings

• 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
• understate the importance or quality of

Synonyms

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