Situation vs Background - What's the difference?
situation | background |
The way in which something is positioned vis-à-vis its surroundings.
* 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows) :
The place in which something is situated; a location.
* 1833 , Thomas Hibbert and Robert Buist, The American Flower Garden Directory , page 142:
Position or status with regard to conditions and circumstances.
The combination of circumstances at a given moment; a state of affairs.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5
, passage=Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.}}
(UK, dated) A position of employment; a post.
* 1913 , , (Sons and Lovers) , Penguin 2006, page 78:
* 1946 , Vaughn Horton, Denver Darling, Milt Gabler, :
A difficult or unpleasant set of circumstances; a problem.
One's social heritage; what one did in the past/previously.
A part of the picture that depicts scenery to the rear or behind the main subject; context.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= Information relevant to the current situation about past events; history.
A less important feature of scenery (as opposed to foreground).
(computing) The image or color, over which a computer's desktop items are shown (e.g. icons or application windows).
(computing) Activity on a computer that is not normally visible to the user.
As nouns the difference between situation and background
is that situation is the way in which something is positioned vis-à-vis its surroundings while background is one's social heritage; what one did in the past/previously.As a verb background is
to put in a position that is not prominent.situation
English
Alternative forms
* scituationNoun
(en noun)- ...he being naturally an underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger's house exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who slept every night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy river, naturally felt the atmosphere still and oppressive.
- [Hibíscus] speciòsus is the most splendid, and deserves a situation in every garden.
- When he was nineteen, he suddenly left the 'Co-op' office, and got a situation in Nottingham.
- You take a morning paper from the top of the stack
- And read the situations from the front to the back
- The only job that's open need a man with a knack
- So put it right back in the rack Jack.
- Boss, we've got a situation here...
Synonyms
* (combination of circumstances) condition, set upSee also
* situation comedy, sitcomReferences
* Source for the definitions: ** Dictionary.com. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/situation] (accessed: March 10, 2007). * * *Anagrams
* ----background
English
Noun
(en noun)William E. Conner
An Acoustic Arms Race, volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close