context

Pluralcontexts

Formscontexts, contexting, contexted

1. 1
   backgroundnouncountable or uncountable

   The circumstances, surroundings and background of an event, situation or find that help explain what it means or why it matters.

   Like the frame and lighting around a photograph: they shape how you read the image.

   Read the whole report to understand the context of the decision.

   Her remark seemed rude until you knew the context of the argument.

   UsageUsually in context or in the context of: an event happens in a context, and you put a result in context.

   Note

   Phil McNulty, reporting England's 5–0 win in Moldova for BBC Sport in 2012, places it in the context of a weak opponent. Setting and backdrop name the scene itself. Context names the scene as it bears on meaning, which is why a context explains where a backdrop only surrounds.

2. 2
   surrounding wordsnouncountable or uncountable

   The text surrounding a word or passage that helps make its meaning clear.

   Translators study the context carefully before choosing the right word.

   Out of context, the quotation gave a misleading impression of the author.

   UsageSet phrases: in context, out of context, and take something out of context.

   Note

   Ambiguity is what this sense exists to resolve: dish can name the plate or the food served on it, and the surrounding words usually decide which. In everyday speech it settles into fixed phrases (in context, out of context, taken out of context), each a reminder that meaning depends on the surrounding words. The broader "circumstances" sense stretches the same idea beyond text.

3. 3
   verbobsolete

   To weave or fasten things firmly together into a close union.

   The whole worlds frame, which is contexted onely by commerce and contracts.

   1638, Richard Younge, The Drunkard's Character

   If the Subiect bee Historie, or contexted Fable, then I hold it better put in Prose, or Blanks: for ordinarie discourse neuer shewes so well in Meeter

   1623, Owen Feltham, Resolves: Divine

   Note

   A seventeenth-century verb that shares its Latin source, context(us), with the noun and keeps a literal image of knitting. Owen Feltham's Resolves (1623) speaks of "contexted Fable," a story woven together. Richard Younge in 1638 describes the world's frame as "contexted onely by commerce and contracts." Both writers use the past participle, and both use it figuratively. Modern English says knit or bind instead. Source

   Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

   • The verb context is attested in the seventeenth century. en.wiktionary.org
   • The verb and noun share the Latin source contextus. en.wiktionary.org
   • The Latin source carries an image of weaving or knitting. en.wiktionary.org
   • Owen Feltham wrote Resolves, first published in 1623. en.wikipedia.org
   • Feltham's Resolves contains the exact phrase contexted Fable. en.wiktionary.org
   • Richard Younge's 1638 work describes the world's frame using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
   • Contexted is a past participle; both quotations apply the idea of joining figuratively, to a story and to society. en.wiktionary.org

Showing meanings only. Show all 7