Skip to content
OneKitly

screenplay

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United States//ˈskɹiːnˌpleɪ//

A script for a movie or a television show; especially, the former specifically.

noun

  1. 1

    A script for a movie or a television show; especially, the former specifically.

    I know Corinne would be happy if I started writing scripts again. Since my last screenplay, I haven't written anything in over four months.

Etymology

From screen + play.

verb

  1. 1

    To write a screenplay.

    Also, in the case of this novel, its adaption to the big screen in 1983, directed by James Ivory, screenplayed by Jhabvala herself—screenwriter of the year, London Critics Film Award, 1984—awarded with a BAFTA, and nominated for the Palme d'Or, gave rise to Heat and Dust's great success.

Forms

plural
screenplays
past tense
screenplayed
past participle
screenplayed
present participle
screenplaying
third person singular
screenplays
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).