any imaginary place where spiritual beings (demons or fairies or angels or the like) abide; "science has emptied the spirit world of its former inhabitants"
not restricted to one sect or school or party; "religious training in a nonsectarian atmosphere"; "nonsectarian colleges"; "a wide and unsectarian interest in religion"- Bertrand Russell
(computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
a person's social heritage: previous experience or training; "he is a lawyer with a sports background"
information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem; "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground; "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation; "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
extraneous signals that can be confused with the phenomenon to be observed or measured; "they got a bad connection and could hardly hear one another over the background signals"
understate the importance or quality of; "he played down his royal ancestry"
the solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair
landing in a harbor next to a pier where ships are loaded and unloaded or repaired; may have gates to let water in or out; "the ship arrived at the dock more than a day late"
an enclosure in a court of law where the defendant sits during the trial
a platform where trucks or trains can be loaded or unloaded
any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine
(Christianity) the abode of Satan and the forces of evil; where sinners suffer eternal punishment; "Hurl'd headlong...To bottomless perdition, there to dwell"- John Milton; "a demon from the depths of the pit"
a cause of difficulty and suffering; "war is hell"; "go to blazes"
any place of pain and turmoil; "the hell of battle"; "the inferno of the engine room"; "when you're alone Christmas is the pits";
the act of starting something; "he was responsible for the beginning of negotiations"
the first part or section of something; "`It was a dark and stormy night' is a hackneyed beginning for a story"
the event consisting of the start of something; "the beginning of the war"
the place where something begins, where it springs into being; "the Italian beginning of the Renaissance"; "Jupiter was the origin of the radiation"; "Pittsburgh is the source of the Ohio River"; "communism's Russian root"
the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the get-go that he was the man for her"