English dictionary
background
nounPronunciation
ˈbæk.ɡɹaʊnd
Audio pronunciation
Parts of speech
Definitions
noun
- scenery hung at back of stage
noun
- (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
noun
- a person's social heritage: previous experience or training
noun
- information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
noun
- the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
noun
- relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation
noun
- extraneous signals that can be confused with the phenomenon to be observed or measured
noun
- the state of the environment in which a situation exists
verb
- understate the importance or quality of
Example sentences
he is a lawyer with a sports background
the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident
he posed her against a background of rolling hills
when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background
they got a bad connection and could hardly hear one another over the background signals
you can't do that in a university setting
he played down his royal ancestry