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.
The tariffs have largely been background music as investors weigh the artificial-intelligence build-out and inflation.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
She features in a video depicting her walking into the DfE offices with the background music from film The Devil Wears Prada.
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
Herrmann, Hitchcock’s musical alter ego, also wrote the underscore, or background music.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
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
Ethan, who never said much, had a lot to say about the camera angles and background music and described the star's performance as subtle.
From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg
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.
