| noun | a person's social heritage: previous experience or training “he is a lawyer with a sports background” |
| noun | the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground “he posed her against a background of rolling hills” |
| noun | information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem “the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident” |
| noun | 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” |
| noun | relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation “when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background” |
| noun | the state of the environment in which a situation exists “you can't do that in a university setting” |
| noun | (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear |
| noun | scenery hung at back of stage |
| verb | understate the importance or quality of “he played down his royal ancestry” |
| backgrounder | noun | a press conference or interview in which a government official explains to reporters the background of an action or policy |
| background | verb | understate the importance or quality of |
| scopal | adjective | of or relating to scope |
| background | noun | relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation |