Art & MusicGreek → English
Scene
/sin/noun
A section of a play or film set in one place, or the place where an event happened.
The Greek roots
σκηνή
skēnḗ
tent, stage building
Literally: “tent, hut”
Follow a root:σκηνή5 words
The story of the word
The σκηνή was the wooden hut behind the acting area where Greek actors swapped masks. Painters decorated the front of it, so the building turned into the backdrop, and the backdrop turned into the setting. English borrowed the word in the 1530s for a subdivision of a play. Behind the scenes still points at the original hut.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1530s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
sceneryscenicscenarioproscenium
In a sentence
The scene in the kitchen runs eleven minutes without a cut.
Police reached the scene before the ambulance.