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
“With her sense of immediacy and mise en scène, she’s created a mode of participation in which you are required to be present, to participate.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2021
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
The dramatic mise en scène of human prestige coincides with the first appearance of this concentration in masses, and triumphs with its triumph.
From Introduction to the Science of Sociology by Park, Robert Ezra
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.
