Find the word definition

Wiktionary
set the scene

vb. To prepare for something by providing a background, a description, etc.

Usage examples of "set the scene".

Ilma and Arthur will go out into the world and embark upon a subtle saturation campaign which will set the scene for Ukko's advent.

Just to set the scene and seeing as I haven't been in the plot too much lately.

Those days in Tokyo during the Occupation had set the scene for everything that was to come.

I remember that quite clearly because it seemed to set the scene for nearly everything that followed.

Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results.

There you will set the scene to make it appear the battle occurred in that place.

I don't really need that safe opened, it will just help to set the scene.

Audrey Knollys knew that when she set the scene of the final battle out there.

The death of the dinosaurs set the scene for the appearance of man.

Talking to Mike Donaldson, the guy from People magazine, telling the semi-fictional story of George Stark's genesis, he had switched the location to the big house here in Ludlow without even thinking about it - because, he supposed, Ludlow was where he did most of his writing and it was perfectly normal to set the scene here - especially if you were setting a scene, thinking of a scene, the way you did when you were making a piece of fiction.