family / education, etc.
1 [C] the details of a person's family, education, experience etc:
a person's family / social / cultural / educational / class background * The job would suit someone with a business background. * In spite of their very different backgrounds, they immediately became friends.
past
2 [C,usually sing,U] the circumstances or past events which help explain why sth is how it is; information about these:
the historical background to the war * background information / knowledge * The elections are taking place against a background of violence. * Can you give me more background on the company's financial position?
of picture / photo
3 [C,usually sing.] the part of a picture, photograph or view behind the main objects, people, etc:
a photograph with trees in the background
compareFOREGROUND
less important position
4 [sing.] a position in which people are not paying attention to sb/sth or not as much attention as they are paying to sb/sth else:
He prefers to remain in the background and let his assistant talk to the press. * A piano tinkled gently in the background. * background music * There was a lot of background noise (= that you could hear, but were not listening to).
compareFOREGROUND
colour under sth
5 [C,usually sing.] a colour or design on which sth is painted, drawn, etc:
The name of the company is written in red on a white background.
IDIOMS see MERGE
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of background come from?
This entry for background is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is background a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, background is tagged as noun.
Does background appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — background appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
