Dictionary entry details
• BACKGROUND (noun)
Meaning:
A person's social heritage: previous experience or training
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Context example:
he is a lawyer with a sports background
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
heritage; inheritance (any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors)
Meaning:
The part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Synonyms:
background; ground
Context example:
he posed her against a background of rolling hills
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
aspect; panorama; prospect; scene; view; vista (the visual percept of a region)
Meaning:
Information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Synonyms:
background knowledge; background
Context example:
the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
information (knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction)
Meaning:
Extraneous signals that can be confused with the phenomenon to be observed or measured
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural events
Synonyms:
background signal; background
Context example:
they got a bad connection and could hardly hear one another over the background signals
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
disturbance; interference; noise (electrical or acoustic activity that can disturb communication)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "background"):
background noise; ground noise (extraneous noise contaminating sound measurements that cannot be separated from the desired signal)
background radiation (radiation coming from sources other than those being observed)
Meaning:
Relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural events
Context example:
when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
accompaniment; attendant; co-occurrence; concomitant (an event or situation that happens at the same time as or in connection with another)
Meaning:
The state of the environment in which a situation exists
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Synonyms:
scope; setting; background
Context example:
you can't do that in a university setting
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
environment (the totality of surrounding conditions)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "background"):
canvas; canvass (the setting for a narrative or fictional or dramatic account)
show window; showcase (a setting in which something can be displayed to best effect)
Meaning:
(computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Synonyms:
screen background; desktop; background
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
CRT screen; screen (display on the surface of the large end of a cathode-ray tube on which is electronically created)
Domain category:
computer science; computing (the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures)
Meaning:
Scenery hung at back of stage
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Synonyms:
backcloth; backdrop; background
Hypernyms ("background" is a kind of...):
scene; scenery (the painted structures of a stage set that are intended to suggest a particular locale)
• BACKGROUND (verb)
Meaning:
Understate the importance or quality of
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Synonyms:
background; play down; downplay
Context example:
he played down his royal ancestry
Hypernyms (to "background" is one way to...):
accent; accentuate; emphasise; emphasize; punctuate; stress (to stress, single out as important)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "background"):
wave off (dismiss as insignificant)
soft-pedal (play down or obscure)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
Antonym:
foreground (move into the foreground to make more visible or prominent)
