background
adjective
1. Less important in a scenery.
- background noise.
noun
1. a person's social heritage: previous experience or training
- he is a lawyer with a sports background
Definition categories: attribute, heritage, inheritance
2. the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
- he posed her against a background of rolling hills
Similar word(s): ground
Definition categories: thought, aspect, panorama, prospect, scene, view, vista
3. information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
- the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident
Definition categories: thought, information
4. 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
Definition categories: event, disturbance, interference, noise
5. relatively unimportant accompanying situation
- when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background
Definition categories: event, accompaniment, attendant, concomitant
6. the state of the environment in which a situation exists
Similar word(s): scope, setting
Definition categories: state, environment
7. (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
Similar word(s): desktop
Definition categories: man–made, screen
8. scenery hung at back of stage
Similar word(s): backcloth, backdrop
Definition categories: man–made, scene, scenery
Sentences with background as a noun:
- The lawyer had a background in computer science.
- There was tons of noise in the background.
- The photographer let us pick a background for the portrait.
- The antivirus program is running in the background.