foreground

noun

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.”

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

1. To place in the foreground (physically or metaphorically).

   “Right from the start, The Irishman foregrounds the looming inevitability of death.”

   “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.”