background

(n) a person's social heritage: previous experience or training
- he is a lawyer with a sports background
(n) the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
- he posed her against a background of rolling hills
ground,
(n) information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
- the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident
background knowledge,
(n) 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
background signal,
(n) relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation
- when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background
(n) the state of the environment in which a situation exists
- you can't do that in a university setting
scope, setting,
(n) (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear screen background, desktop,
(n) scenery hung at back of stage backcloth, backdrop,

(v) understate the importance or quality of
- he played down his royal ancestry
play down, downplay,

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

foreground highlight play up spotlight

backgrounder backgrounding background knowledge background level background noise background processing background radiation background signal