Word.ws English Dictionary

foreground

UK/ˈfɔː(ɹ)ˌɡɹaʊnd/

foreground noun: the elements of an image which lie closest to the picture plane.

Noun

foreground (plural foregrounds)

  1. The elements of an image which lie closest to the picture plane.
    • Note the presence in the foreground of the fronds of ailanthus, often called “ghetto palm,” now ubiquitous in Baltimore but apparently already common in the 1930s.2006, Mark Chalkley, Hampden-Woodberry
  2. The subject of an image, often depicted at the bottom in a two-dimensional work.
  3. (attributive, often) The application the user is currently interacting with; the application window that appears in front of all others.

Verb

foreground (third-person singular simple present foregrounds, present participle foregrounding, simple past and past participle foregrounded)

  1. To place in the foreground (physically or metaphorically).
    • Right from the start, The Irishman foregrounds the looming inevitability of death.2019 October 31, A. A. Dowd, “Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro reunite for one last gripping crime epic, The Irishman”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 21 Aug 2020
    • Things that were implicit and largely unjudged in the book, filtered through layers of stiff-upper-lip irony — Fanny’s self-pity, Linda’s obliviousness — are now foregrounded and, for the most part, rendered banal, with “Beaches”-level platitudes and sentimentality.2021 July 29, Mike Hale, “Review: ‘The Pursuit of Love’ Against All Odds”, in The New York Times
    Synonyms:
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foreground meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

foreground in Hindi

अग्रभूमि

foreground in Tamil

முன்னணி

foreground in Marathi

अग्रभूमी

foreground in Urdu

نمایاں جگہ, پیش منظر
More languagesFewer languages
foreground in Malayalam
ഏറ്റവും മുന്നിലുള്ള ഭാഗം, ഏറ്റവും വ്യക്തമായി കാണാവുന്ന ഭാഗം, പെട്ടെന്നു കണ്ണിൽ പെടുന്ന ഭാഗം, പൂർവ്വതലം
foreground in Punjabi
ਫੋਰਗਰਾਊਂਡ
foreground in Gujarati
ફોરગ્રાઉન્ડ
foreground in Odia
ଅଗ୍ରଭୂମି
foreground in Nepali
अग्रभूमि

Examples of foreground in a sentence

  • The foreground of this painting is not in keeping.
  • The constituent images are: the background image, the foreground image, and the mask image.
  • In the foreground is the deck of the paddlewheeler she is racing.

All 26 example sentences with foreground

Synonyms of foreground

Forms of foreground

Noun
pluralforegrounds
Verb
third-person singular presentforegrounds
present participleforegrounding
past participleforegrounded
pastforegrounded

Plural of foreground: foregrounds

Origin of foreground

From fore- + ground. Compare Dutch voorgrond (“foreground”), German Vordergrund (“foreground”), Danish forgrund (“foreground”), Swedish förgrund (“foreground”), Norwegian forgrunn (“foreground”), Icelandic forgrunni (“foreground”).

Words formed from foreground

Questions about foreground

What does foreground mean?
Foreground means the elements of an image which lie closest to the picture plane.
What is foreground in Hindi?
Foreground in Hindi is अग्रभूमि. See Foreground meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is foreground?
Foreground can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce foreground?
Foreground is pronounced /ˈfɔː(ɹ)ˌɡɹaʊnd/ (UK).
What is the plural of foreground?
The plural of foreground is foregrounds.

Words near foreground in the dictionary

  1. foregranted
  2. foregrants
  3. foregrasp
  4. foregrip
  5. foregrips
  6. foreground
  7. foregroundable
  8. foregrounded
  9. foregrounder
  10. foregrounders
  11. foregrounding

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foreground (page history and authors); foreground (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); foreground (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); foreground (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); foreground (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); foreground (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); foreground (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); foreground (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); foreground (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); foreground (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-foreground.ogg.

Cite this entry: “foreground.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/foreground. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.