different between ancestry vs background

English

Alternative forms

• ancestrie (obsolete)
• auncestrie (obsolete)
• auncestry (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English auncestrie, from Old French ancesserie. See ancestor.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æn.s?s.t?i/

Noun

ancestry (plural ancestries)

1. Condition as to ancestors; ancestral lineage; hence, birth or honorable descent.

   Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. -Addison.

2. A series of ancestors or progenitors; lineage, or those who compose the line of natural descent.

Synonyms

• provenance

Related terms

• ancestor

Translations

English

Etymology

back +? ground

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bæk.??a?nd/

Adjective

background (not comparable)

1. Less important or less noticeable in a scene or system.

Antonyms

• conspicuous, foreground, forestanding, primary, prominent

Noun

background (countable and uncountable, plural backgrounds)

1. One's social heritage, or previous life; what one did in the past.

2. A part of the picture that depicts scenery to the rear or behind the main subject; context.
3. Information relevant to the current situation about past events; history.
4. A less important feature of scenery (as opposed to foreground).

5. (computing) The image or color over which a computer's desktop items are shown (e.g. icons or application windows).
6. (computing) A type of activity on a computer that is not normally visible to the user.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

background (third-person singular simple present backgrounds, present participle backgrounding, simple past and past participle backgrounded)

1. To put in a position that is not prominent.
   • 2006, Paul Baker, Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis, page 163:

     One aspect of the story that appears interesting is that the alleged rapist and victim are only referred to by name together in the same sentence once. In all the other sentences, one receives more focus, while the other is backgrounded.

2. (journalism) To gather and provide background information (on).

Spanish

Noun

background m (plural backgrounds)

1. background