wallpaper
Americannoun
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paper, usually with printed decorative patterns in color, for pasting on and covering the walls or ceilings of rooms, hallways, etc.
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any fabric, foil, vinyl material, etc., used as a wall or ceiling covering.
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Computers. a design or picture in the background of the primary display screen of a graphical user interface.
Personalize your tablet by changing the wallpaper.
verb (used with object)
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wallpapers,
present (3rd person singular)
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wallpapered,
past participle, past
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wallpapering
present participle
noun
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paper usually printed or embossed with designs for pasting onto walls and ceilings
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something pleasant but bland which serves as an unobtrusive background
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( as modifier )
wallpaper music
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computing a graphics file that can be displayed in certain applications behind or around the main dialogue boxes, working display areas, etc, for decoration
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wallpapersimple
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wallpaperssimple
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have wallpaperedperfect
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has wallpaperedperfect
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am wallpaperingprogressive
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are wallpaperingprogressive
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is wallpaperingprogressive
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have been wallpaperingperfect progressive
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has been wallpaperingperfect progressive
Past
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wallpaperedsimple
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had wallpaperedperfect
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was wallpaperingprogressive
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were wallpaperingprogressive
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had been wallpaperingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wallpaper
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.
See Examples For:
When they handed the property over, it boasted emerald green walls, a rattan monkey chandelier, and banana-leaf wallpaper.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
As if to underscore the radical turn these artists were making, the paintings are hung on an ornate plum-red wallpaper in a wainscoted gallery that harks back to the Grand Palais’s look.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Witkoff has become so ubiquitous in international transactions that his role as the co-founder of Trump’s business has all but faded into the gilt wallpaper of the Oval Office.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2026
That level of period detail extends to Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper, ball-trim swag valances and wall air vents laser-cut in Moorish patterns.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
There were ruffledy yellow and brown checked curtains at the windows and the same cloth was on the ceiling, glued up there like wallpaper.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
The bathrooms exude charm thanks to their patterned wallpapers.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
He raised the roof of the house he inherited; added wings, a porch and a cupola; and selected—along with his wife, Martha—the interior’s paint colors, wallpapers and furniture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 7, 2026
"The target market for this is insanely small," he told one user on X last September who questioned his decision to launch a digital wallpapers app.
From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2025
“Certain colors get canceled out. You have to think about wallpapers, upholstery and drapery fabric. Those are the big things.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
He sits with Maxine on the fainting couch, leafing through a coffee table book she’d helped to edit on eighteenth-century French wallpapers, one side of the book resting on each of their knees.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Common to much of the user-generated content are eerie images and haunting stories of mysterious, yellow wallpapered corridors and empty office-like spaces that exist outside of, or beyond, reality itself.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
A wallpapered room lit by ceiling bulb is just visible upstairs.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2024
The couple took an easier approach in the second room, wallpapered with an artsy series of sardine cans.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 14, 2023
Elliott said she wallpapered the room with 1 millimeter of a cork product, and the layers help with soundproofing.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 6, 2023
Like the rest of the theater, it is wallpapered with old posters from shows throughout the history of the playhouse.
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Another option: wallpapering the ceiling instead of the walls.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
Reita Green, a former dancer and actress, has become best friends with wallpapering partner Beverly Pate, who’s 58 years her junior.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
She says the company took her and her colleagues on training courses to learn how to to do DIY, such as painting and wallpapering.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2023
These long chains of fractions could stretch out across 15 feet of notebook pages wallpapering his cell.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 2, 2023
The mural itself had been damaged in spots by all the wallpapering done over it, so she was not able to make out the artist’s signature.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
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.
