Onstage
adverbOn or onto the stage, in view of the audience during a performance.
How to spell onstage
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce onstage
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does onstage mean?
- adverbOn or onto the stage, in view of the audience during a performance.
- adjectiveRelating to or happening on the stage in front of an audience.
Onstage in a sentence
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adverb
The cast walked onstage as the curtain rose.
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adjective
His onstage persona was far louder than his quiet private self.
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adverb
She felt calm the moment she stepped onstage under the lights.
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adjective
The director planned every onstage movement in careful detail.
Where does onstage come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a modern English compound built from two much older pieces. The first element, 'on', is a native Old English word that has meant 'in a position upon' since Anglo-Saxon times, with relatives in nearly every Germanic language. The second element, 'stage', came into English in the 1200s from Old French estage, meaning a storey, a platform, or a standing place, which itself goes back to the Latin verb stare, 'to stand'. The theatrical sense of 'stage' as the raised platform where actors perform settled in during the 1500s. The closed-up compound 'onstage', written as a single word to describe being on or moving onto that platform, is comparatively recent and belongs to the theatre and broadcasting world of the 1900s, which is why the spelling trap is simply remembering that it is now one solid word rather than two.
How the word is built
- on (preposition/adverb of position)
- stage (the performance platform, from Old French estage)
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