Definition of "backgrounder" [backgrounder]

• An informal news briefing for reporters by an official often speaking off the record. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Look at what they're already doing to John Kerry in this backgrounder from the New York Times."
• "Jailbreakers have long had an application available to them called backgrounder, which lets them run any application in the background - and you know what?"
• "Yet the agency, responding to an Ottawa Citizen request for information about HERTs as another potential component of Canada's relief operations in Haiti, replied with a 600-word backgrounder suggesting the teams are in place across the country and ready to respond to big domestic medical emergencies."