on-screen

adverb or adjective

ˈȯn-ˈskrēn 

ˈän-

variants or onscreen

1

: in a motion picture or a television program

But the makers of the 1958 movie understood that this most subtle of writers was telling a tale about the froth of life, and they celebrated it on-screen with gusto.

—Gerald Asher

The sixth-grader reportedly earned $1 million for starring in the upcoming My Girl, which pairs him with Anna Chlumsky for his first onscreen kiss.

—Alexander Tresniowski

2

: on a computer or television screen

You can watch a football game, see a small icon onscreen offering player statistics, click it with the remote, and view the stats.

—Edward W. Desmond

… handheld joysticks and gamepads that jolt and jar with the on-screen action.

—Leigh Gallagher

Examples of on-screen in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Video on social media showed TV footage of Taiwanese news programming in which on-screen warnings arrived before shaking began, according to Tobin. —Evan Bush, NBC News, 4 Apr. 2024

Brando immediately picked up acolytes and imitators, James Dean first among them, on-screen and off. —Ty Burr, Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2024

Not only did the re-recording of her hit 2014 album 1989 lead to her biggest debut atop the Billboard 200 chart upon its release last fall, the on-screen version of her live show, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, became one of the highest-grossing concert films of all time upon its release last year. —Sadie Bell, Peoplemag, 2 Apr. 2024

This awestruck fervor was a little too much, given that, in the source material, Aykroyd famously dreams about being fellated by a ghost and Murray spends nearly every minute on-screen rolling his eyes. —David Sims, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2024

Follow the on-screen instructions for adding a backup disk. —Kyle Barr / Gizmodo, Quartz, 29 Mar. 2024

The feature finds its essential tension in its approach to Neeson’s on-screen image — here, playing a gentle elder embedded in a quiet town, but also unforgettably an actor that has buttered his bread shooting up criminal henchmen for nearly two decades now. —J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 28 Mar. 2024

Like Rear Window, Wait Until Dark provides nail-biting tension without leaving the comfort of the protagonist’s on-screen home. —Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 27 Mar. 2024

Tran and Graziadei’s on-screen romance fizzled out in the seventh week of the competition, and she was eliminated. —Alexandra Del Rosario, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1929, in the meaning defined at sense 1