"backgrounds" in the noun sense
1. background
a person's social heritage: previous experience or training
"he is a lawyer with a sports background"
2. background, ground
the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground
"he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
3. background, background knowledge
information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem
"the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
4. background, background signal
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"
5. background
relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation
"when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
6. setting, background, scope
the state of the environment in which a situation exists
"you can't do that in a university setting"
7. background, desktop, screen background
computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
8. backdrop, background, backcloth
scenery hung at back of stage
"backgrounds" in the verb sense
1. background, play down, downplay
understate the importance or quality of
"he played down his royal ancestry"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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