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step

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: STEP, štep, stęp, step-, štěp, and Štěp

English

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Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan (“to step, go, proceed, advance”), stepe (“step”), from Proto-West Germanic *stappjan, from Proto-Germanic *stapjaną (“to step”), *stapiz (“step”), from Proto-Indo-European *stebʰ- (“to support, stomp, curse, be amazed”).

Cognate with West Frisian stappe (“to step”), North Frisian stape (“to walk, trudge”), Dutch stappen (“to step, walk”), Walloon steper (“to walk away, leave”), German stapfen (“to trudge, stomp, plod”) and further to Slavic Polish stąpać (“to stomp, stamp, step, tread”), Russian ступать (stupatʹ) and Polish stopień (“step, stair, rung, degree”), Russian степень (stepenʹ). Related to stamp, stomp.

Noun

step (plural steps)

  1. An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
    • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1:
      Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:step.
  3. 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.
    • 1624, Sir Henry Wotton, The Elements Of Architecture:
      The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 122:
      Through the open front door ran Jessamy, down the steps to where Kitto was sitting at the bottom with the pram beside him.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:step.
  4. The part of a spade, digging stick or similar tool that a digger's foot rests against and presses on when digging; an ear, a foot-rest.
  5. (glassblowing) The button joining a glass's stem to its foot.
  6. A distinct part of a process; stage; phase.
    He improved step by step, or by steps.
    The first step is to find a job.
  7. 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.
  8. The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running.
    One step is generally about three feet, but may be more or less.
  9. A small space or distance.
    It is but a step.
  10. A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
  11. A gait; manner of walking.
    The approach of a man is often known by his step.
  12. Proceeding; measure; action; act.
    • 1717, Alexander Pope, Preface to his collection of poems:
      The reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.
    • c. 1792, William Cowper, The Needless Alarm:
      Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.
    • 1879, George Washington Cable, Old Creole Days:
      I have lately taken steps […] to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.
    • 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)
      Moon has also requested that government officials take additional steps to help fight pollution, his spokesman said.
  13. (in the plural) A walk; passage.
    • 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
      Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree.
  14. (in the plural) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
  15. (nautical) A framing in wood or iron which is intended to receive an upright shaft; specifically, a block of wood, or a solid platform upon the keelson, supporting the heel of the mast.
  16. (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.
  17. (machines) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
  19. (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.
  20. (kinematics) A change of position effected by a motion of translation.
    • 1878, William Kingdon Clifford, Elements of Dynamic: An Introduction to the Study of Motion:
      A change of position effected by a motion of translation will be called a step.
  21. (programming) A constant difference between consecutive values in a series.
    Printing from 0 to 9 with a step of 3 will display 0, 3, 6 and 9.
  22. (slang, primarily Netherlands) Kick scooter.
  23. Stepping (style of dance)
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

step (third-person singular simple present steps, present participle stepping, simple past and past participle stepped or (dated) stept or (obsolete) stope)

  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.
    • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):
      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.
  2. (intransitive) To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.
    Come one, come all. Step right up!
    to step to one of the neighbors
    • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
      Some days later it happened that young Heriotside was stepping home over the Lang Muir about ten at night, it being his first jaunt from home since his arm had mended.
    • 2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Twilight Town:
      Well... It's hard to talk about in front of the children. Can we step outside?
  3. (intransitive) To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
  4. To dance.
    • 2013, Calvin Vraa, The Last Pathway Home, page 179:
      At arms length with left hands clasped they moved back where facing each other they stepped in time to their dance embrace.
    • 2013, Jean Fullerton, Call Nurse Millie:
      She clapped, but instead of walking her back to the table, Alex took her hand and pulled her gently towards him, slipping his arm around her waist again and stepping her off on the first beat of the next dance.
    • 2017, Christine Schimpf, A Christmas Kind of Perfect:
      He stepped to the beat of one of their favorite songs.
    • 2018, Paula Poundstone, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness, page 180:
      He put on a tame version of the 1960s song “The Letter,” wrapped his right arm around my waist, raised my right hand, draped it over his left, and we stepped, stepped, and back stepped to the beat.
  5. (intransitive, figuratively) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
  6. (transitive) To set, as the foot.
    • 2010, Charles E. Miller, Winds of Mercy: 40 Short Stories, page 219:
      One of the women, Elsie, stepped her foot inside to help the woman.
  7. (transitive, nautical) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.
    • 1898, Joseph Conrad, Youth:
      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.
  8. (transitive) To advance a process gradually, one step at a time.
  9. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To depart.
    You best step, cuz things are about to jump off.
  10. (intransitive, slang) To be confrontational.
    Antonym: step off
    Coordinate term: step up
    You tryna be steppin right now? You better bring it if so.
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Etymology 2

Clipping of stepchild and stepsibling.

Noun

step (plural steps)

  1. (colloquial) A stepchild.
    • 1934 September 6, George Herriman, Krazy Kat, comic strip, →ISBN, page 234:
      [Krazy Kat, after complimenting a woman on her nice polite little child:] Boy or girl?
      [Woman:] Step – but well brung up.
  2. (colloquial) A stepsibling.
    • 2016, Robert M. Herzog, A World Between:
      So for Richard and Barbara, Jeff and Kari, the impossibly varied collection of steps and halves that is another legacy of my father.

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