atmosphere vs background

atmosphere

noun
  • The air in a particular place. 

  • The gases surrounding the Earth or any astronomical body. 

  • Extras in a scene who have no spoken lines. 

  • The conditions (such as music, illumination etc.) that can influence the mood felt in an environment. 

  • The apparent mood felt in an environment. 

  • A unit of measurement for pressure equal to 101325 Pa (symbol: atm) 

background

noun
  • A part of the picture that depicts scenery to the rear or behind the main subject; context. 

  • One's social heritage, or previous life; what one did in the past. 

  • Information relevant to the current situation about past events; history. 

  • The image or color over which a computer's desktop items are shown (e.g. icons or application windows). 

  • A less important feature of scenery (as opposed to foreground). 

  • A type of activity on a computer that is not normally visible to the user. 

adj
  • Less important or less noticeable in a scene or system. 

verb
  • To put in a position that is not prominent. 

  • To gather and provide background information (on). 

How often have the words atmosphere and background occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )