mise en scène
Americannoun
-
the process of setting a stage, with regard to placement of actors, scenery, properties, etc.
-
the stage setting or scenery of a play.
-
surroundings; environment.
noun
-
-
the arrangement of properties, scenery, etc, in a play
-
the objects so arranged; stage setting
-
-
the environment of an event
Other Word 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.
The mise en scène is sumptuously prepared with flourishes of rococo drollery.
From Los Angeles Times • May 13, 2026
I was looking for something complex — a woman's story, a thriller, a genre movie — something powerful, with space to direct and work on the mise en scène.
From Salon • Sep. 17, 2021
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
Abbott and Vicary coached the development team to be “brand ambassadors,” who insure that each element of a production has a distinctive Hallmark feel, down to the decorative mise en scène.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 16, 2019
It is a queer landscape, but one of new natural beauties frankly and sympathetically discovered, and it forms a mise en scène which, I make bold to say, would have scandalised neither Keats nor Spenser.
From Kentucky Poems by Cawein, Madison J.
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.
