background - definition, thesaurus and related words from WordNet-Online

WordNet-Online
Free dictionary and thesaurus of English. Definitions, synonyms, antonyms and more...
Hint: double-click any word to get it searched!

Noun background has 8 senses

background - a person's social heritage: previous experience or training; "he is a lawyer with a sports background"
--₁ is a kind of inheritance, heritage
background, ground - the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground; "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
--₂ is a kind of view, aspect, prospect, scene, vista, panorama
background, background knowledge - information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem; "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
--₃ is a kind of information
background, background signal - 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"
--₄ is a kind of noise, interference, disturbance
--₄ has particulars: background noise, ground noise; background radiation
background - relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation; "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
--₅ is a kind of accompaniment, concomitant, co-occurrence

Derived form: verb background₁
setting, background, scope - the state of the environment in which a situation exists; "you can't do that in a university setting"
--₆ is a kind of environment
--₆ has particulars: canvas, canvass; showcase, show window
background, desktop, screen background - (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
--₇ is a kind of screen, CRT screen
backdrop, background, backcloth - scenery hung at back of stage
--₈ is a kind of scenery, scene

Verb background has 1 sense

background, play down, downplay - understate the importance or quality of; "he played down his royal ancestry"
--₁ is one way to stress, emphasize, emphasise, punctuate, accent, accentuate
Antonyms: foreground, highlight, spotlight, play up

Derived form: noun background₅
Sample sentences:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something