scene
Pluralscenes
Pluralscenes
- 1A part of a play, film, novel, or other story, usually showing continuous action in one place.
The director reshot the opening scene because the lighting was wrong.
Act two contains three short scenes set in different rooms of the house.
UsageThings happen in a scene of a film or play, but people arrive at the scene of a crime.
Note
Drama's working unit is counted the way a script counts it: a play of three acts and twenty-five scenes. Film, television and radio took over the term, so a movie has its moving final scene and its love scenes too. An actor can also have a scene. Baroness Orczy writes of a heroine who "has a magnificent scene," meaning a stretch of the action where her part takes center stage.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The theatrical term 'scene' also denotes a subdivision of a dramatic work in film, television and radio. en.wiktionary.org
- Baroness Orczy uses the exact words 'has a magnificent scene' about an actress playing a heroine. The passage occurs in 'The Affair at the Novelty Theatre' in The Case of Miss Elliott, spoken by the man in the corner. gutenberg.net.au
- 2The place where a significant event occurs, especially one that draws attention from onlookers, police, or reporters.
Firefighters were the first to arrive at the scene of the blaze.
Investigators sealed off the scene until forensic teams could examine it.
UsageUsually the scene of + event, with at or to: at the scene of the crash, rushed to the scene. On the scene means present.
- 3An informal, loosely defined group of people united by a common interest, including their shared activities and usual gathering places; a subculture.
The city's indie music scene thrived in tiny basement clubs.
He finally felt at home once he found the local poetry scene.
UsageUsually after a word for the shared interest: the music scene, the local poetry scene.
Similarworld, community, subculture, circle, milieu
Note
This is a world defined by what its members like: the emo scene, the indie scene, the local poetry scene. In "Indie just isn't my scene" it shades into personal taste, meaning not my kind of thing. The 2000s youth subculture took the bare word as its own name.
- 4A view or sight taken in at a glance, such as a landscape or everything happening in a place at a particular moment.
The valley opened into a breathtaking scene of snow-capped peaks.
He paused to sketch the rural scene before the light faded.
UsageOne view is a scene; the landscape as a whole is scenery, which normally has no plural (not
incorrect: sceneries).Note
The view need not be natural, either. In Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1962), a man turns back to "the scene before him" and faces an enormous new block of council dwellings. Dryden's "sylvan scene" (1700) shows the older, pastoral use.
- 5The place, time, and surrounding circumstances in which an event occurs or in which a story's action is set.
The author sets the scene in nineteenth-century Russia, amid political unrest.
The scene of the novel is Paris in the spring of 1968, when student protests filled the streets.
UsageCommon in set the scene: to describe the place and situation before the events begin.
Similarsetting, background, locale, milieu
Note
Here the theater's word for a setting widens to cover any setting. In Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), "In Troy, there lies the scene" is still a dramatist naming where a story happens. In John M. Mason's On Religious Controversy (c. 1807), "the world is a vast scene of strife," and the setting is life itself.
Less common meanings
- 6A noisy or emotional display of feeling in front of others, causing embarrassment or disruption, sometimes put on deliberately for effect.
Embarrassed by the public scene, she grabbed her coat and left.
He created an ugly scene at the dinner table, shouting until everyone fell silent.
UsagePeople make or cause a scene: don't make a scene.
Similarfuss, commotion, spectacle, outburst, tantrum
Note
The theater spills into everyday life here: a scene is a display of feeling staged before witnesses, sometimes deliberately. The use is old: Thomas De Quincey wrote of a "lover of scenes" in 1832, and it is as current as ever.
- 7An activity, setting or lifestyle that suits someone and in which they feel comfortable, usually after a possessive such as my or his.
He tried the nightclub crowd for a year before deciding it just wasn't his scene.
Quiet bookstores and late-night jazz bars are more my scene than stadium concerts.
UsageMost often negative, as in not really my scene: a gentle way to turn something down as a matter of taste.
Similarthing
Note
Unlike the "music or club scene" meaning, which names a whole community (the jazz scene, the club scene), this one is personal, and it nearly always comes with a possessive such as my, his or their.
- 8The painted backdrops, furnishings, and other decorations on a stage that represent the place where a play's action happens.
Between acts, the crew wheeled the ballroom set out of the scene dock and into place.
Our community theater has no scene shop, so volunteers build the sets in a borrowed garage.
UsageMostly in compounds such as scene shop and scene painter; the phrase behind the scenes comes from it.
Note
Scenery is what stage carpenters build and scene painters paint. One paints scenes, and one changes the scenes when the play moves somewhere new. Whatever stands behind the scenes stands out of the audience's sight, and that literal stage position gave English its phrase for anything done out of public view. Don't confuse it with the section of a play: here the scene is something built, not something performed.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Stage carpenters build scenery. rsc.org.uk
- Scene painters paint scenery. rsc.org.uk
- The theatrical expression refers literally to being behind scenery, out of the audience's sight, and developed a figurative meaning concerning hidden activities. gutenberg.org
- 9Called out to signal that a scene or performance has ended and the actors may stop, including during rehearsal or improvisation.
The moment the director said 'And scene,' the two actors stopped arguing and burst out laughing.
'And scene!' she called from behind the camera, and the cast relaxed for the first time in hours.
Similarcut
Oppositeaction
Note
This is a set cue rather than a description: it tells the actors that their performance is over and they can break character. Its nearest neighbor is cut!, which also stops a take. It is also called out as end scene! or and scene! The cue takes its name from the dramatic unit just completed.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- “Scene!” is a cue telling actors that their performance has ended. en.wiktionary.org
- “Cut!” is a near-synonym of “Scene!” en.wiktionary.org
- 10The stage of a theater, viewed as the place and profession of dramatic performance.
Note
Here the word stays closest to its origin: Greek skēnē, "scene, stage," carried into English through Latin and Middle French. The scene is the acting space itself, so players stand "in the center of the scene" where a modern writer would put them on the stage. Treat it as archaic. It is natural in period prose or pastiche but odd in a review of last night's show. Scena and skene are doublets from the same Greek word.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The English word came through Middle French and Latin. en.wiktionary.org
- The ultimate Greek source is skēnē, glossed “scene, stage.” en.wiktionary.org
- “Scene” can denote the acting space or stage. en.wiktionary.org
- Scena and skene are doublets of scene derived ultimately from the same Greek word. en.wiktionary.org
- 11A youth subculture popular across English-speaking countries in the 2000s and early 2010s, known for distinctive fashion, hairstyles, and music tastes.
- 12An acted-out fantasy or planned encounter, especially one negotiated between partners within BDSM.
- 13To take part in an acted-out fantasy or planned encounter, especially one negotiated within BDSM.
- 14To present or exhibit something as a scene; to put it on display for others to see.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, "scene, stage") was borrowed by Latin as sc(a)ena, passed into Middle French as scene, and from there into Late Middle English with the same spelling. Scena and skene are doublets of it.