Step

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /stÉ›p/
• Rhymes: -É›p
• Homophones: steppe

Origin

From Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan ("to step, go, proceed, advance"), stepe ("step"), from Proto-Germanic *stapjaną ("to step"), *stapiz ("step"), from Proto-Indo-European *stÁb-, *stÁbʰ-, *stemb-, *stembʰ- ("to support, stomp, curse, be amazed"). Cognate with West Frisian stappe ("to step"), North Frisian stape ("to walk, trudge"), Dutch stappen ("to step, walk"), German stapfen ("to trudge, stomp, plod"). Related to stamp, stomp.

Full definition of step

Verb

1. (intransitive) To move the foot in walking; to advance or recede by raising and moving one of the feet to another resting place, or by moving both feet in succession.
2. (intransitive) To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.
• 2013-06-01, Ideas coming down the track, A “moving platform” scheme...is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.
3. to step to one of the neighbors
4. (intransitive) To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
• Home the swain retreats, His flock before him stepping to the fold. — James Thomson (poet)
5. (intransitive, figuratively) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
• They are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity. — Alexander Pope
6. (transitive) To set, as the foot.
7. (transitive, nautical) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.
• 1898, Joseph Conrad, We put everything straight, stepped the long-boat's mast for our skipper, who was in charge of her, and I was not sorry to sit down for a moment.

Derived terms

Noun

1. An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
2. A rest, or one of a set of rests, for the foot in ascending or descending, as a stair, or a rung of a ladder.
• Sir Henry WottonThe breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 4, One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.
3. A running board where passengers step to get on and off the bus.
   The driver must have a clear view of the step in order to prevent accidents.
4. The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running. Used also figuratively of any kind of progress.
• Isaac NewtonTo derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be a very great step in philosophy.
5. One step is generally about three feet, but may be more or less.   He improved step by step, or by steps.
6. A small space or distance.
   It is but a step.
7. A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
8. A gait; manner of walking.
• 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step.
9. The approach of a man is often known by his step.
10. Proceeding; measure; action; act.
• Alexander PopeThe reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.
• William CowperBeware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.
• G. W. CableI have lately taken steps...to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.
11. (plural) A walk; passage.
• John DrydenConduct my steps to find the fatal tree.
12. (plural) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
13. (nautical) A framing in wood or iron which is intended to receive an upright shaft; specif., a block of wood, or a solid platform upon the keelson, supporting the heel of the mast.
14. (machines) One of a series of offsets, or parts, resembling the steps of stairs, as one of the series of parts of a cone pulley on which the belt runs
15. (machines) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
16. (music) The interval between two contiguous degrees of the scale.Usage note: The word tone is often used as the name of this interval; but there is evident incongruity in using tone for indicating the interval between tones. As the word scale is derived from the Italian scala, a ladder, the intervals may well be called steps.
17. (kinematics) A change of position effected by a motion of translation. - William Kingdon Clifford

Synonyms

• stride

Derived terms

Anagrams

• pest
• pets
• sept, Sept.