staged

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of stage.

   The company staged its new production in a small downtown theater.

   Activists staged a walkout shortly after the announcement.

   Note

   A regular form: stage simply adds -d, and one spelling serves both the simple past (they staged a walkout) and the participle after have or in the passive. The participle carries every sense of the verb, including the clinical one, where a disease is staged once its progress has been assessed. It also covers the engineer's sense, where a rocket has staged when it drops a spent section and fires the next.

2. 2
   adjective

   Planned and prepared in advance rather than happening spontaneously.

   The whole interview felt staged and tightly rehearsed.

   Their staged welcome at the airport fooled nobody.

   Similarcontrived, artificial, rehearsed, choreographed, fake

   Oppositespontaneous, unrehearsed, genuine, natural

   Note

   This adjective often carries a charge of pretense: what is staged was arranged to look as though it simply happened. A staged accident or a staged quarrel implies an audience meant to be fooled, as when a conman stages a crash to collect the insurance money. That hint of deceit separates it from the theater sense, where the performance is open and nobody is tricked.

3. 3
   adjective

   Created to be performed in a theater.

   The novel finally received a staged adaptation last year.

   She prefers staged dramas to their filmed counterparts.

   Similartheatrical

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