Synonyms:
background
Meaning: a person's social heritage: previous experience or training; "he is a lawyer with a sports background"
Synonyms:
background, ground
Meaning: the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground; "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
Synonyms:
background, background_knowledge
Meaning: information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem; "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
Synonyms:
background, background_signal
Meaning: 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"
Synonyms:
background
Meaning: relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation; "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
Synonyms:
setting, background, scope
Meaning: the state of the environment in which a situation exists; "you can't do that in a university setting"
verb
meaning of the word
Synonyms:
background, play_down, downplay
Meaning: understate the importance or quality of; "he played down his royal ancestry"
Usage examples
And a few sophomores hung about in the background.
Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background.
Then the outlines of a room etched themselves against the clouded background.
There, outlined as black as an ebony statue on that shining background, I saw the figure of a man upon the tor.
Seen against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious.
Then he watched her, as she retreated into the black background of the woods, his heart thumping so that it hurt.
There was no answer--just the hiss of wind-blown sand against the rock and the mutter of the car in the background.
But, though he often makes his people beautiful in their sorrow, he more often than not sets their sad figures against a common and ugly background.
Happy only in her earliest and latest years, she is, nevertheless, a bright and attractive figure against the dark background of feudal tyranny and crime.
"Why, she's smiling at us," as the afternoon sunshine streamed across the lovely face, to lose itself in the folds of the crimson curtain in the background.