Synonyms for background

Noun

1. background, inheritance, heritage

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

2. background, ground, view, aspect, prospect, scene, vista, panorama

usage: 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

usage: 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, noise, interference, disturbance

usage: 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, accompaniment, concomitant, co-occurrence

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

6. setting, background, scope, environment

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

7. background, desktop, screen background, screen, CRT screen

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

8. backdrop, background, backcloth, scenery, scene

usage: scenery hung at back of stage

Verb

1. background, play down, downplay, stress, emphasize, emphasise, punctuate, accent, accentuate

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