step

Meanings

Noun

• An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
• 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.
• A distinct part of a process; stage; phase.
• A running board where passengers step to get on and off the bus.
• The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running.
• A small space or distance.
• A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
• A gait; manner of walking.
• Proceeding; measure; action; act.
• A walk; passage.
• A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
• 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.
• 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.
• A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
• The interval between two contiguous degrees of the scale.
• A change of position effected by a motion of translation.
• A constant difference between consecutive values in a series.
• A stepsibling.

Verb

• 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.
• To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.
• To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
• To move mentally; to go in imagination.
• To set, as the foot.
• To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.

Related

Similar words

• stride

Narrower meaning words

• back step, half step, etc. see under back, half, etc.
• cyclic step

Origin

• From Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan ("to step, go, proceed, advance"), stepe, from Proto-Germanic *stapjaną ("to step"), *stapiz, from Proto-Indo-European *stab- ("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 and Polish stopień ("step, stair, rung, degree"), Russian степень. Related to stamp, stomp.