background

The background is that part of a landscape or stage that is remote from the viewer. The priming of a picture can also be addressed. This image background and its execution can be used in the fine arts as a design tool to create spatial depth or to emphasize the actual subject or motif. In these contexts, background is also used as a counter-term to foreground .

Figurative meaning

In a figurative sense, background can mean a hidden context, something that is only gradually becoming apparent. In this context, the adjective is profound for "deep", "wise" and "valuable".

Occasionally, the word “ slide ” is used in sophisticated language when a (mental) background, a person or thing is meant (“in front of the slide of the / the”). In philology , especially in editing, slides are usually contemporary works that the author of a text presumes to be known. In order to correctly interpret and edit a text, it is often necessary to determine which slides it refers to.

The noun background has only been used in German since the 18th century and goes back to the much older preposition behind (mhd. Hinder , ahd. Hintar ) or the adverb behind (mhd. Hinden [e] , ahd. Hintana ). The word can be found today, among other things, as a component in compositions, partly in technical terms as a translation of the English background :

Fundus - which can be viewed using an ophthalmoscopy
Background process - programs in data processing that are barely noticed by the user
Background radiation - often also cosmic background radiation . cosmic microwave background (CMB) is evidence of the big bang theory according to today's ideas
Migration background - classification criterion in German statistics for immigrant people

Web links

Wiktionary: Background - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d sentence after Mackensen - Large German Dictionary , 1977, Lemma Background
↑ A use of the term that played a central role as early as the 18th century, as in Adelung, Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect, Volume 2. Leipzig 1796, p. 1196: In the Mahlerey it is the back of a painting on which everything is ground, and from which it must seem separate; in contrast to the foreground
^ Sentence after Mackensen - Large German Dictionary , 1977, Lemma Foli.e
^ Sentence from Duden "Etymologie" - dictionary of origin of the German language , 2nd edition, Dudenverlag, 1989

[Mackensen-1] sentence after Mackensen - Large German Dictionary , 1977, Lemma Background

[2] A use of the term that played a central role as early as the 18th century, as in Adelung, Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect, Volume 2. Leipzig 1796, p. 1196: In the Mahlerey it is the back of a painting on which everything is ground, and from which it must seem separate; in contrast to the foreground

[Mackensen_Folie-3] Sentence after Mackensen - Large German Dictionary , 1977, Lemma Foli.e

[4] Sentence from Duden "Etymologie" - dictionary of origin of the German language , 2nd edition, Dudenverlag, 1989