How to Use curtain-raiser in a Sentence

curtain-raiser

noun
  • Read our curtain-raiser profile on the film here.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 4 Feb. 2026
  • Neither outfit managed to find the back of the net in their curtain-raiser and collide at the London Stadium, aiming to finally get off the mark.
    — Kilty Cleary, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Aug. 2025
  • The second season served as a curtain-raiser for Kaitlyn Dever and her character, Abby.
    — Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times, 8 June 2026
  • The world premiere of Hulu’s The Testaments is the curtain-raiser to this year’s Series Mania.
    — Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Dense, yet never overwhelming, The Sanhedrin Chronicles is merely the curtain-raiser for an epic spanning multiple sequels.
    — Josh Weiss, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025
  • In many ways, Canada’s 1-0 win over South Africa on Sunday was the perfect curtain-raiser for the first-ever World Cup round of 32.
    — Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 29 June 2026
  • Unlike its counterparts in Europe, the Challenge Cup is still searching for a clear purpose beyond serving as a curtain-raiser between the league champion and Shield winner.
    — Asli Pelit, New York Times, 27 June 2026
  • After epic curtain-raisers in 1970 and 1986, this year’s inaugural match will feature a resurgent Mexico against a youthful South Africa team.
    — Jonathan Thompson, Travel + Leisure, 10 June 2026
  • Wahlberg was in Cannes with co-star Sonequa Martin-Green for the world premiere of Boston Blue, which was a curtain-raiser for the MIPCOM event.
    — Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 12 Oct. 2025
  • The Supercopa de España began in 1982 as a quick curtain-raiser between the La Liga champions and the Copa del Rey winners, usually over two legs.
    — Jenny Catlin, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2026
  • Besides airing from Milan, the curtain-raiser will beam from three Alpine venues — Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Predazzo — to a global audience estimated at more than 2 billion viewers.
    — Nick Vivarelli, Variety, 5 Feb. 2026
  • The fixture list for next season, including whether there will be a Friday night curtain-raiser and the festive schedule, will be released on Friday, June 19 at 10am BST (5am ET).
    — Luke Bosher, New York Times, 24 May 2026
  • Here’s a curtain-raiser on SXSW Music 2026, which runs from March 12-16 — with all of the different sub-festivals running concurrently, for the first time in the Austin gathering’s four-decade history.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 12 Mar. 2026
  • In the past 14 years, only once has the winner of the traditional season curtain-raiser gone on to lift the Premier League title (Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side, who pipped Liverpool by a solitary point in 2018-19).
    — James Pearce, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2025
  • Only New Zealand comes in with a lower world ranking, and Les Grenadiers’ group features matchups with 2022 semifinalist Morocco and legendary Brazil (plus Scotland, whom Haiti will face in Foxboro’s World Cup curtain-raiser on June 13).
    — Zack Cox, Boston Herald, 2 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'curtain-raiser.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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