How to Use upstage in a Sentence

upstage

1 of 2 verb
Definition of upstagenext
  • We don't want the flower girl upstaging the bride.
  • My apple pie was upstaged by her chocolate cake.
  • The egg came first, but the chicken would not be upstaged.
    — Hannah Goldfield, The New Yorker, 11 Aug. 2023
  • But as of the past year, the BBQ has been upstaged by the second-to-last weekend of June.
    — Detroit Free Press, 23 June 2019
  • Trask will have a chance at the next level to upstage the Gators’ legendary trio.
    — Edgar Thompson, orlandosentinel.com, 2 Apr. 2021
  • He was upstaged by the five large men crouched before him.
    — Rainer Sabin, Detroit Free Press, 27 Oct. 2019
  • Its role is clear: Keep the scoop upright, don’t leak and don’t upstage the main player, the ice cream.
    — New York Times, 26 May 2022
  • After decades of being upstaged by the lobes, the rest of the ear is ready for its glow-up moment.
    — Washington Post, 16 Jan. 2024
  • Some suggest the host's celebrity shouldn't upstage the players and their race to win cash.
    — Lynette Rice, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2021
  • Kennedy needed something to regain his stature on the world stage, and upstage Khrushchev.
    — Francis French, Smithsonian, 20 July 2019
  • How do the Mavericks upstage all the above? By winning.
    — Dallas News, 28 Mar. 2022
  • This prom-worthy pile of sequins will upstage every full-length gown in the room.
    — Hannah Oh, Seventeen, 22 Nov. 2022
  • Leave it to the NBA to drop a little off-the-court news to upstage its most anticipated event.
    — oregonlive, 29 Sep. 2020
  • But if there has been a feud, not upstaging Kate in the matter of tiaras could be one way Hanbury is trying to keep the peace.
    — Martha Ross, The Mercury News, 6 June 2019
  • The showroom dummies upstage the humans, but also stand in for them.
    — Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2021
  • Hooded gowns could upstage sheer dresses as the hottest red-carpet trend in 2023.
    — Hanna Lustig, Glamour, 6 Dec. 2022
  • Much of the propulsive energy of the first season came from the cousins’ efforts to upstage each other.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 7 Sep. 2023
  • His ovation upstaged that for the man who was retiring.
    — Ann Killion, SFChronicle.com, 29 Sep. 2019
  • Only the world’s biggest movie star could upstage her own movie with each fearsome scowl.
    — Joey Nolfi, EW.com, 15 Oct. 2019
  • But soon after the scheduled start time for the Democrats’ rally, dozens of Trump supporters arrived with their chants and flags to upstage the event.
    — Kaitlyn Schallhorn, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Sep. 2023
  • Rapsody might be the only rapper ever to upstage Kendrick Lamar on his song.
    — cleveland, 8 June 2020
  • Don’t upstage it, but turn to it to find colors to pull out for large, upholstered pieces and accessories.
    — Marni Jameson, orlandosentinel.com, 23 July 2021
  • Witness a son try and upstage his father’s doomed legacy.
    — Keyaira Boone, Essence, 29 Nov. 2021
  • Few soccer players on the planet are famous enough, skillful enough, and prickly enough to upstage the World Cup.
    — Joshua Robinson, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2022
  • As an adult, Franklin would upstage her older sister Erma, robbing her of her chance in the spotlight.
    — Neal Justin, Star Tribune, 19 Mar. 2021
  • That trip was upstaged by the coverage of Trump’s indictment.
    — Gromer Jeffers Jr., Dallas News, 6 Apr. 2023
  • Remember when Tiger Woods nearly upstaged the Iron Bowl?
    — Ben Flanagan | Bflanagan@al.com, al, 15 Nov. 2019
  • While Kerman is the host and thus the star of the show, a recent young guest managed to completely upstage the artist on his own social media account.
    — Melissa Locker, Time, 22 Apr. 2020
  • In the television age, image is king, and both men are desperate to out-talk and upstage each other as the cameras roll.
    — courant.com, 8 Nov. 2019
  • The holy business at the center of the tableau is nearly upstaged by the flirting, drinking, gambling and fighting happening around the edges.
    — New York Times, 20 Mar. 2020
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upstage

2 of 2 noun
  • With its couches and kitchens, its upstage stairs and stage right doors.
    — Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2021
  • The upstage wall sometimes retracts to expose a grassy hillock with small trees.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 11 Aug. 2021
  • The wedding guests, on the other hand, 12 dancers planted upstage in tidy clumps, appeared to want to be anywhere but there.
    — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 22 Jan. 2018
  • The singer-actors file out, not toward the center but to a brick-walled corner at extreme upstage left.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022
  • Things were going off without a hitch until Lil Nas X made his way to the stripper pole upstage.
    — Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 23 May 2021
  • Simons’ script follows the serials, with sections from the black-and-white film shown on an upstage screen.
    — Mark Lowry, star-telegram, 9 June 2017
  • But the dancing: As the company sings a gay bridal song, the Bride, far upstage on a high platform, writhes in self-destructive fury.
    — John Timpane, Philly.com, 2 Nov. 2017
  • Rose’s set is built around an upstage loggia with an overhead walkway and stairs that lead down to the marketplace.
    — Jeffrey Gantz, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Mar. 2018
  • And as Silky is stumbling upstage with one arm in and one arm out, Eureka is taking us home and nailing the final chorus.
    — Paul McCallion, Vulture, 19 Aug. 2021
  • Media: Hartford Curant Class of 2018 students went upstage in front of the supporting crowd and signed their name on a white poster with their school logo.
    — Kaila Contreras, Houston Chronicle, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Bloody cardboard tampons the size of golden retrievers hang on the upstage curtain.
    — Steve Heisler, Chicago Reader, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Seiwert makes ingenious use of slits in the black upstage curtain.
    — Virginia Bock, The Mercury News, 8 May 2017
  • Designer Alexander Dodge sets the tale within receding stone walls open upstage to the view of distant mountains.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 6 Aug. 2019
  • The set, with its sofa, coffee table and upstage piano is gallingly simple.
    — New York Times, 12 Nov. 2019
  • The camera still rolls, recording not the jazz musicians but the white auteur threatening his Black worker, while the musicians snicker at the scene from upstage.
    — Sarah Cowan, The New York Review of Books, 10 Oct. 2020
  • Shoes: Numerous pairs of shoes against the upstage wall give an early hint of how many characters each actor will inhabit.
    — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10 Feb. 2018
  • In the beginning, the dancers’ upstage placement creates three shadows against the backdrop, the darker middle shadow an overlap.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Sep. 2019
  • With a floor of honey brown and an upstage wall like a minimalist Kandinsky, the stage is bare at the start and filled piece by piece with chairs and long wooden tables: for reading at, for dancing on, for dying at.
    — Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times, 8 June 2018
  • But in the finale, winds far upstage were repeatedly behind Ehnes’ lickety-split tempo.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 12 Mar. 2021
  • The references to illumination are of the moon, quite literally, with a round, orangey orb rising on the upstage scrim throughout the work's 25 minutes.
    — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Perhaps feeling lonely far upstage, perhaps playing as if they still were padded by lots of strings, winds and brasses were often louder than necessary.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 2 Oct. 2020
  • Mirella Weingarten’s dramatic set design situates Khan on a parched, dusty hillside, rising upstage and draped ominously in lengths of rope.
    — Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2021
  • The set has also been placed far upstage, suggesting Gunner’s receding tide of sanity.
    — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 Feb. 2018
  • Instead of hydraulics in the floor that permit characters to descend into hell, the journey is made via a compartment upstage that opens and closes like a restaurant dumbwaiter.
    — Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2021
  • There’s the stage with different acoustics upstage and downstage, the orchestra level seating area, under the balcony, which is an extremely deep area with a low ceiling, and the upper balcony.
    — oregonlive, 27 Sep. 2021
  • But why the piano tumped up against the tree, or the four upstage telescopes, or the big gyroscopes, or, except to facilitate more hyperactivity, the trampoline?
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 11 Aug. 2021
  • Unfortunately, the geography of the upstage area is sketchy, causing some blurriness in the blocking.
    — Charles McNultytheater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2022
  • So why did director Rebecca Martinez and scenic designer Daniel Meeker choose to place the set as far upstage as possible, creating a gulf of about 10-feet between the actors and the audience?
    — Lee Williams, OregonLive.com, 18 June 2017
  • Additionally, Jennifer Tipton’s lighting inks the background in warmest black and subsequently bathes the dancers and their upstage dancing in a translucent bluish hue.
    — Robert Greskovic, WSJ, 19 Nov. 2018
  • Nothing can keep down the opera’s magnificent chorus, although placing it behind a scrim upstage, far from Conlon and the orchestra in the pit, reduced its effectiveness.
    — Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'upstage.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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