upstage
/ʌpˈsteɪd͡ʒ/
"upstage" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“upstage” is an uncommon English word, ranked #63,341 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #63,341
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The part of a stage that is farthest from the audience or camera.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | upstage |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʌpˈsteɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #63,341 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “upstage” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for upstage is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʌpˈsteɪd͡ʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #63,341 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The part of a stage that is farthest from the audience or camera.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for upstage in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From up- + stage. The figurative uses “haughty” and “to draw attention away” derive from actors moving to a higher and thus more visible position on a sloped stage. The correct English form is upstage, spelled U-P-S-T-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1The part of a stage that is farthest from the audience or camera.
Etymology
From up- + stage. The figurative uses “haughty” and “to draw attention away” derive from actors moving to a higher and thus more visible position on a sloped stage.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “upstage”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is U-P-S-T-A-G-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʌpˈsteɪd͡ʒ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.