backgrounding

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of pushing something into a less prominent position so it draws less attention.

   Like dimming the edges of a stage so the audience watches only the center.

   The director's backgrounding of the subplot kept viewers focused on the main story.

   Sustained backgrounding of dissenting voices slowly narrowed the public debate.

   Similarmarginalization, downplaying

   Note

   Usually a mass noun, as in the backgrounding of a subplot, but discourse analysts count it. Applied Psycholinguistics in 1992 writes of backgroundings: moves in which a speaker supplies whatever information helps the listener understand a claim better. In such a move, a word like because introduces context rather than a cause. When you mean these individual moves, the plural backgroundings is correct.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of background.

   The reporter spent the morning backgrounding the candidate's voting record.

   The studio is backgrounding the ambient noise to keep the dialogue clear.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb background: setting something behind, making it less prominent, researching a person, and feeding weaned calves on forage. To be backgrounding a candidate is to dig into their history. One spelling trap: background is also the past participle of backgrind, but that verb's -ing form is backgrinding, so this form belongs only to background.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An intermediate stage in cattle production, between weaning and feedlot placement, during which calves gain weight and build immunity on forage and grain.

   Ranchers use backgrounding to add weight to weaned calves before sending them to a feedlot.

   The operation specializes in backgrounding, conditioning calves on pasture for several months.

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