The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Noise \Noise\, v. i.
   To sound; to make a noise. --Milton.
   [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Noise \Noise\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Noised; p pr. & vb. n.
   Noising.]
   1. To spread by rumor or report.
      [1913 Webster]

            All these sayings were noised abroad. --Luke i. 65.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To disturb with noise. [Obs.] --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Noise \Noise\, n. [F. noise noisy strife, quarrel, brawl, fr. L.
   nausea seasickness, sickness, disgust. See Nausea.]
   1. Sound of any kind.
      [1913 Webster]

            The heavens turn about in a most rapid motion
            without noise
            to us perceived.                      --Bacon.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: Noise is either a sound of too short a duration to be
         determined, like the report of a cannon; or else it is
         a confused mixture of many discordant sounds, like the
         rolling of thunder or the noise of the waves.
         Nevertheless, the difference between sound and noise is
         by no means precise. --Ganot.
         [1913 Webster]

   2. Especially, loud, confused, or senseless sound; clamor;
      din.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Loud or continuous talk; general talk or discussion;
      rumor; report. "The noise goes." --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

            What noise have we had about transplantation of
            diseases and transfusion of blood!    --T. Baker.
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            Socrates lived in Athens during the great plague
            which has made so much noise in all ages.
                                                  --Spectator.
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   4. Music, in general; a concert; also, a company of
      musicians; a band. [Obs.] --Milton.
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            The king has his noise of gypsies.    --B. Jonson.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Cry; outcry; clamor; din; clatter; uproar.
        [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

background \back"ground`\, n. [Back, a. + ground.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. Ground in the rear or behind, or in the distance, as
      opposed to the foreground, or the ground in front.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Paint.) The space which is behind and subordinate to a
      portrait or group of figures.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: The distance in a picture is usually divided into
         foreground, middle distance, and background.
         --Fairholt.
         [1913 Webster]

   3. Anything behind, serving as a foil; as, the statue had a
      background of red hangings.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. A place in obscurity or retirement, or out of sight.
      [1913 Webster]

            I fancy there was a background of grinding and
            waiting before Miss Torry could produce this highly
            finished . . . performance.           --Mrs.
                                                  Alexander.
      [1913 Webster]

            A husband somewhere in the background. --Thackeray.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. The set of conditions within which an action takes place,
      including the social and physical conditions as well as
      the psychological states of the participants; as, within
      the background of the massive budget deficits of the
      1980's, new spending programs had little chance of passage
      by the congress.
      [PJC]

   6. The set of conditions that precede and affect an action,
      such as the social and historical precedents for the
      event, as well as the general background[5]; as, against
      the background of their expulsion by the Serbs, the desire
      of Kosovars for vengeance is understandable though
      regrettable.
      [PJC]

   7. (Science) The signals that may be detected by a
      measurement which are not due to the phenomenon being
      studied, and tend to make the measurement uncertain to a
      greater or lesser degree. Specifically: (Physics)
      Electronic noise present in a system using electronic
      measuring instrument or in a telecommunications system,
      which may hide and which must be differentiated from the
      desired signal; also called background noise or noise.
      [PJC]

   8. (Journalism) An agreement between a journalist and an
      interviewee that the name of the interviewee will not be
      quoted in any publication, although the substance of the
      remarks may be reported; -- often used in the phrase "on
      background". Compare deep background.
      [PJC]

   To place in the background, to make of little consequence.

   To keep in the background, to remain unobtrusive,
      inconspicuous or out of sight; -- of people.

   deep background, (Journalism) the status of an interview
      which must not be quoted in a publication, even without
      attribution. Compare background[8].
      [1913 Webster +PJC]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

noise
    n 1: sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant
         sound); "he enjoyed the street noises"; "they heard
         indistinct noises of people talking"; "during the firework
         display that ended the gala the noise reached 98 decibels"
    2: the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality;
       sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience; "modern
       music is just noise to me" [syn: noise, dissonance,
       racket]
    3: electrical or acoustic activity that can disturb
       communication [syn: noise, interference, disturbance]
    4: a loud outcry of protest or complaint; "the announcement of
       the election recount caused a lot of noise"; "whatever it was
       he didn't like it and he was going to let them know by making
       as loud a noise as he could"
    5: incomprehensibility resulting from irrelevant information or
       meaningless facts or remarks; "all the noise in his speech
       concealed the fact that he didn't have anything to say"
    6: the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan [syn:
       randomness, haphazardness, stochasticity, noise]
    v 1: emit a noise [syn: make noise, resound, noise]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

231 Moby Thesaurus words for "noise":
   ALGOL, Aesopian language, Babel, Bedlam let loose, COBOL, EDP,
   FORTRAN, Greek, aimlessness, alphabetic data, alphanumeric code,
   amplitude, angular data, argot, assembler, atmospherics,
   auditory effect, auditory phenomenon, babble, babel, ballyhoo,
   bawling, be noisy, bedlam, binary digit, binary scale,
   binary system, bit, black spot, blare, blaring, blast, blasting,
   blind spot, bloom, blooping, bobbery, brawl, brouhaha, bruit about,
   bug, byte, cacophony, cant, channel, charivari, chirm, cipher,
   circulate, clamor, clangor, clap, clash, clatter, code,
   command pulses, commands, commotion, communication explosion,
   communication theory, compiler, computer code, computer language,
   computer program, confusion of tongues, control signals,
   controlled quantity, correcting signals, crash, crawling, creeping,
   cryptogram, data, data retrieval, data storage, dead letter,
   decoding, definition, din, discord, discordance, dissonance,
   disturbance, donnybrook, double Dutch, drift, drunken brawl,
   dustup, electronic data processing, emit a sound, emptiness,
   empty sound, encoding, entropy, error, error signals, fade-out,
   fading, feedback pulses, feedback signals, film data, flap, flare,
   fracas, free-for-all, fringe area, futility, garble, ghost,
   gibberish, gift of tongues, glossolalia, gobbledygook, granulation,
   grid, hard shadow, harshness, hell, hell broke loose,
   hexadecimal system, howl, hubbub, hue and cry, hullabaloo, image,
   inanity, information, information explosion, information theory,
   input data, input quantity, insignificance, instructions,
   interference, jangle, jar, jargon, jumble, loud noise, loudness,
   machine language, maffick, make a noise, make a racket,
   make a sound, make an uproar, meaninglessness, mere noise, message,
   multiple image, multiple messages, noise and shouting,
   nonsensicality, nullity, numeric data, octal system,
   oscillograph data, outcry, output data, output quantity,
   pandemonium, phatic communion, phone, picture, picture noise,
   picture shifts, play, polar data, punch-card data, purposelessness,
   racket, rain, raise Cain, raise a clamor, raise hell,
   raise the devil, raise the roof, random data, rattle, reception,
   rectangular data, redundancy, reference quantity, resound, rhubarb,
   roar, rolling, row, ruckus, ruction, ruly English, rumble,
   rumbling, rumor, rumpus, scanning pattern, scintillation, scramble,
   secret language, senselessness, shading, shindy, shivaree, signal,
   signals, single messages, slang, snow, snowstorm, sonance, sound,
   sound intensity level, sound propagation, sound wave, speak,
   speech sound, spread, static, thunder, thunderclap, thundering,
   tintamarre, tumult, turmoil, ultrasound, unmeaningness,
   unorganized data, unsignificancy, uproar, visible-speech data,
   whoop it up



The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

noise

    Any part of a signal that is not the true or
   original signal but is introduced by the communication
   mechanism.

   A common example would be an electrical signal travelling down
   a wire to which noise is added by inductive and capacitive
   coupling with other nearby signals (this kind of noise is
   known as "crosstalk").

   A less obvious form of noise is quantisation noise, such as
   the error between the true colour of a point in a scene in the
   real world and its representation as a pixel in a digital
   image.

   (2003-07-05)


The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

NOISE, n.  A stench in the ear.  Undomesticated music.  The chief
product and authenticating sign of civilization.