mise en scène
Americannoun
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the process of setting a stage, with regard to placement of actors, scenery, properties, etc.
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the stage setting or scenery of a play.
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surroundings; environment.
noun
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the arrangement of properties, scenery, etc, in a play
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the objects so arranged; stage setting
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the environment of an event
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mise en scène
First recorded in 1830–1835; French: literally, “a placing on stage”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The mise en scène is sumptuously prepared with flourishes of rococo drollery.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026
Dress up as a detective, create a crime scene on your stoop, tape it off with caution tape, and then toss candy out from within your mise en scène.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2020
When you see that she’s clutching a wrinkly brown paper bag, the mise en scène becomes somehow sadder.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 8, 2018
The signature of an auteur is more like a faint palimpsest visible underneath a film’s action, editing, mise en scène, etc., as opposed to a bold, conspicuous graffiti tag.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2017
Never, perhaps, in any previous representation, was the mise en scène so perfect; it drew three rounds of applause.
From Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 2 by Various
The songs are rapid mise-en-scènes, with Whack as mordant narrator, as if she’d been plucked from a rambunctious but meditative teen movie.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 1, 2018
From salt and pepper shakers to cookie jars to Freudian mise-en-scènes, Steinbach’s work pulls from so much that’s recognizable, but always shifted or shuffled a bit.
From Slate ● Dec. 1, 2017
Although the productions featured impressive sets and lighting, the efforts did not pay off because of cumbersome mise-en-scènes and emotional flatness.
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2010
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
