wallpaper

Pluralwallpapers (some meanings)

Formswallpapers, wallpapering, wallpapered

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A decorative, paper-like covering applied to the interior walls of a room or building.

   They hung floral wallpaper throughout the hallway last spring.

   Damp had caused the wallpaper to bubble and lift away from the plaster.

   Similarpaper

   Note

   A transparent compound of wall and paper, and the material sense every other meaning borrows from. Here it is uncountable (some wallpaper, too much wallpaper), whereas a single roll and a particular design take a plural. At home and in the trade it is often shortened to plain paper: the paper is peeling in the hall.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A picture or repeating pattern displayed behind everything else on a computer desktop.

   He downloaded a high-resolution wallpaper of a mountain range for his laptop.

   The default wallpaper shipped with the operating system shows abstract waves.

   Similarbackground, backdrop

   Note

   Desktop computing borrowed the word along with the idea of a pattern repeated across a surface. Richard Dungworth and Philippa Wingate's Windows 3.1 & Windows 95 for Beginners (1997) explains that a wallpaper appears in tiles, and the canvas size sets how many are needed. It is countable (design a wallpaper) or uncountable (change your wallpaper), and it usually takes a possessive: the computer's wallpaper.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To cover a wall or room with decorative paper-like material.

   She wallpapered the entire dining room in a deep green print.

   Professional decorators can wallpaper a large room in a single afternoon.

   Similarpaper

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A single roll of decorative paper-like material made for covering walls.

   The estimate called for six wallpapers to finish the staircase.

   She returned an unopened wallpaper to the store for a refund.

   Similarroll

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A particular pattern or design of decorative wall covering.

   The designer launched a new wallpaper inspired by Art Deco motifs.

   Several vintage wallpapers from the 1970s are back in fashion.

   Similarpattern, design

6. 6
   nounfigurativelyuncountablebefore a noun

   Something that becomes an unnoticed part of its surroundings.

   The constant traffic noise had become wallpaper to the city's longtime residents.

   After years on the job, the safety warnings were just wallpaper to him.

   Similarbackground, backdrop

   Note

   The figure turns on what wallpaper is like to live with: always there, never looked at. It often works before another noun. Brian Mooney and Barry Simpson's Breaking News (2004) describes wallpaper television flickering in every dealing room without really being watched. It also pairs easily with adjectives, as in Susan Nathiel's emotional wallpaper. To call something wallpaper is to say it has stopped being noticed.

7. 7
   nounslangcountable or uncountable

   In television news, general footage of a building or place, used as background to a related report.

   The editor cut in wallpaper of the factory while the anchor read the statement.

   With no live feed available, the producer fell back on wallpaper of the harbor.

   Similarfootage, B-roll

   Note

   Newsroom slang for pictures that fill the screen while the item is read over them, without showing anything the words point to. Av Westin's Newswatch: How TV Decides the News (1983) draws the useful line: once the script refers to what is on screen, the same stock footage stops being wallpaper and becomes illustration. It works both as a mass noun (some wallpaper of the station) and as a countable one.

8. 8
   nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable

   In stamp collecting, garish stamps printed in bulk purely to sell to collectors, and usually worth little or nothing.

   The dealer warned that the colorful sheets were wallpaper, worth far less than their face price.

   Auction catalogs rarely bother listing wallpaper from those tiny postal agencies.

   Note

   A collector's put-down, informal and dismissive. The stamps are as gaudy and as plentiful as the paper on a wall, and they are printed for albums rather than for the post. The word usually names a whole class of issues rather than a single stamp, as in a sheet of wallpaper. It belongs to collectors' and dealers' talk, not to neutral description.

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A radio operator's collection of awards and QSL cards from confirmed contacts with other stations.

   The veteran operator's wallpaper spanned three decades of contacts across the globe.

   New hams are often eager to start building their wallpaper.

   Note

   Radio hams' joke on the literal sense: the awards and QSL cards that confirm contacts end up pinned to the wall of the shack. The word can count by the piece (one more piece of wallpaper) or name the whole collection (my wallpaper). It is long-lived in the hobby. QST uses it in 1960, and H. Ward Silver's Ham Radio For Dummies (2013) still writes: "Hams love awards."

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