background music
Americannoun
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music, often recorded, intended to provide a soothing background, usually played over loudspeaker systems in public places, as railway stations or restaurants.
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music composed specifically to accompany and heighten the mood of a visual production, as a movie.
Etymology
Origin of background music
First recorded in 1925–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Not the mellow, easy-listening variety that serves as background music in elevators and waiting rooms.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 16, 2025
This is part of the background music in America: Americans who aren’t unemployed and do have a house are afraid that in the next few years they could lose their job, their security.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 11, 2025
Our expert content team has a way of sprinkling soothing magic on all of our Sleep Stories through the narrator's cadence to the background music to get people to lull to sleep.
From Salon • Nov. 8, 2024
“We’ll kick it up a little bit,’’ Macdonald said of a volume that on Friday served more as background music than starring attraction.
From Seattle Times • May 3, 2024
I can almost hear the documentary’s mournful violin background music start up.
From "The Benefits of Being an Octopus" by Ann Braden
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
