Wallpaper

noun
1.
paper, usually with printed decorative patterns in color, for pasting on and covering the walls or ceilings of rooms, hallways, etc.
2.
any fabric, foil, vinyl material, etc., used as a wall or ceiling covering.
3.
Computers. a design or picture in the background of the primary display screen of a graphical user interface:
Personalize your tablet by changing the wallpaper.
verb (used with object)
4.
to put wallpaper on (a wall, ceiling, etc.) or to furnish (a room, house, etc.) with wallpaper.
noun
1.
paper usually printed or embossed with designs for pasting onto walls and ceilings
2.

something pleasant but bland which serves as an unobtrusive background
(as modifier): wallpaper music

3.
(computing) a graphics file that can be displayed in certain applications behind or around the main dialogue boxes, working display areas, etc, for decoration
verb
4.
to cover (a surface) with wallpaper

1. A file containing a listing (e.g. assembly listing) or a transcript, especially a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows).
The term is now rare, especially since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g. PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the Unix world doesn’t have an equivalent term, so perhaps wallpaper will take hold there. The term probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end transcript files were “:WALBEG” and “:WALEND”, with default file “WALL PAPER” (the space was a path delimiter).
2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations under the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface to MS-DOS.
(1994-12-22)