upstage

1. uncountableentertainmentThe part of a stage that is farthest from the audience or camera.

comparative more upstage · superlative most upstage

1. Toward or at the rear of a theatrical stage.

   The actor turned and walked upstage.

2. Away from the audience or camera.

comparative more upstage · superlative most upstage

1. At the rear of a stage.

   The minimalist play used no upstage scenery.

2. figurativelyobsoleteHaughty, aloof.

   If she hasn't time for this or that, if she refuses to make or keep appointments, if her face does not greet all comers with a sweet and charming smile, then the word is passed around that ‘So-and-So is getting high-hat and up-stage.’

   1929 December, Betty Boone, “The Price of this Stardom”, in Screenland, page 22

   Synonyms: airy, arrogant, chesty, authoritarian, biggity, big-headed, blustery, turgescent

present singular third person upstages · participle present upstaging · participle past upstaged · past upstaged

1. figurativelytransitiveTo draw attention away from others, especially on-stage.

   She only wore that dress to upstage everyone.

   4 more examples

   Although constantly upstaged by Miss Moore's vocal flings, Cary Grant brought the appropriate note of light comedy to his role.

   1973, Jerry Vermilye, Cary Grant, New York: Galahad Books, →ISBN, page 56

   Ronald Reagan’s peace plan for Nicaragua, which would have worked to his domestic political advantage even if it had failed, is upstaged by a surprise initiative by five Central American countries.

   1987 August 17, “Peace Moves”, in Newsweek, volume 60, number 7, page 1

   The romance and spectacle of the Olympics have been upstaged by the reality of the Olympics; both the Summer Games and the Winter Games are now as much big business as they are sport.

   1996, Dave Anderson, The story of the Olympics, New York: W. Morrow, →ISBN, page 10

   But she did not want the name bell books—the persona or the idea in people's heads—to upstage bell hooks's ideas, and she understood that there is an unavoidable tension between the baggage a name can come to carry[…].

   2023, Naomi Klein, “Meeting Myself in the Woods”, in Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN

   Synonyms: eclipse, overshadow

2. transitiveentertainmentTo force other actors to face away from the audience by staying upstage.
3. broadlytransitiveTo treat snobbishly.
4. transitivemedicineTo restage upward; to restage (a case of a disease, usually a cancer) to a higher stage than that found at last assessment.

   Almost one-third of patients were upstaged after re-exploration, three-quarters of whom actually had stage III disease.

   1999, “Mismanagement of ovarian cancer by laparoscopy and laparotomy”, in Laparoscopic surgery in gynaecological oncology, Blackwell Science, →ISBN

   Antonyms: downstage