Other forms: wallpapers
Wallpaper is decorated paper glued over the walls of a room. Patterned rolls, a paste table, and bubbles that will not go away.
Hanging it is a real skill, and matching the pattern at the seams is where amateurs come unstuck. Stripping the old paper off is worse. Computing borrowed the word for the image behind your icons, and that is now the commoner sense for many people. There is a dismissive figurative use, since calling music wallpaper means it is pleasant background that nobody listens to.
1nounwallpaperDecorative paper pasted onto interior walls.
“They stripped the wallpaper off in an afternoon.”
2nounbackgroundThe background image on a computer or phone screen.
“He changed his wallpaper to a photograph of the dog.”
From wall + paper.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Around the House, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 19 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word