Scene-stealing

//ˈsiːn ˈstiːlɪŋ// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    That steals the scene (“dominates a performance through charisma, humour, or powerful acting”).

    "The Pied Piper (20th Century-Fox) pipes sumptuous Monty ("The Beard") Woolley out of his wheel chair for the first time since he began playing The Man Who Came to Dinner (TIME, Jan. 26) three years ago. The change is good for him. The belligerent old nanny goat turns into a very human portrait of a crotchety, kindly Englishman caught in France by the Nazi invasion. But kindliness does not prevent elegant Actor Woolley from walking off with the picture against the trying competition of six scene-stealing children."

Synonyms

All synonyms
show-stealing

Example

More examples

"The Pied Piper (20th Century-Fox) pipes sumptuous Monty ("The Beard") Woolley out of his wheel chair for the first time since he began playing The Man Who Came to Dinner (TIME, Jan. 26) three years ago. The change is good for him. The belligerent old nanny goat turns into a very human portrait of a crotchety, kindly Englishman caught in France by the Nazi invasion. But kindliness does not prevent elegant Actor Woolley from walking off with the picture against the trying competition of six scene-stealing children."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.