[f. BACK a.]
1. The ground or surface lying at the back of or behind the chief objects of contemplation, which occupy the foreground. (Formerly, the part of the stage in a theater remote from the audience.)
1672. Wycherley, Love in Wood, III. ii. Ranger retires to the background.
1799. Sheridan, Pizarro, I. i. (1883), 182. Elvira walks about pensively in the background.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 109. The low cottage in the back-ground.
b. esp. as represented in any of the Arts of Design.
1752. trans. Gersaint’s Etch. Rembrandt, 94. The Back-ground is always faint, the Aqua-fortis having failed.
1847. Ld. Lindsay, Chr. Art, I. 114. The backgrounds are either architectural in the Byzantine style, or mountainous.
c. fig.
1854. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., Introd. 28. Egypt … is the background of the whole history of the Israelites.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 160. A statelier dome … shining on the background of the night of Time.
2. A less prominent position, where an object is not readily noticed; retirement, obscurity.
1779. Sheridan, Critic, III. i. (1883), 177. Keep your madness in the background.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 253. Political friends thought it best … that he should remain in the background.
1876. Green, Short Hist., iv. § 2 (1882), 174. This … may have helped to throw into the background its [Parliament’s] character as a supreme Court of appeal.
