upstaging

Verb

upstage (third-person singular simple present upstages, present participle upstaging, simple past and past participle upstaged)

1. (figuratively, transitive) To draw attention away from others, especially on-stage.
   • She only wore that dress to upstage everyone.

   Synonyms:

   eclipse, overshadow

2. (transitive) To force other actors to face away from the audience by staying upstage.
3. (broadly, transitive) To treat snobbishly.
4. (transitive) To 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

See all 9 meanings of upstage