· a person's social heritage: previous experience or training; "he is a lawyer with a sports background"

Hypernym(s): inheritance, heritage

· the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground; "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"

Synonym(s): ground

Hypernym(s): view, aspect, prospect, scene, vista, panorama

· information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem; "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"

Synonym(s): background_knowledge

Hypernym(s): information

· 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"

Synonym(s): background_signal

Hypernym(s): noise, interference, disturbance

· relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation; "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"

Hypernym(s): accompaniment, concomitant, attendant, co-occurrence

· the state of the environment in which a situation exists; "you can't do that in a university setting"

Synonym(s): setting, scope

Hypernym(s): environment

· (computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear

Synonym(s): desktop, screen_background

Hypernym(s): screen, CRT_screen

· scenery hung at back of stage

Synonym(s): backdrop, backcloth

Hypernym(s): scenery, scene

· understate the importance or quality of; "he played down his royal ancestry"

Synonym(s): play_down, downplay

Hypernym(s): stress, emphasize, emphasise, punctuate, accent, accentuate

Antonym(s): foreground