Word.ws English Dictionary

Penrose stairs

Penrose stairs noun: an impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to depict such a loop.

penrose stairs: an impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing...
Image: Sakurambo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Penrose stairs pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) An impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to depict such a loop.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:Penrose stairs.
    Synonyms:
    impossible staircase, Penrose staircase, Penrose steps

Synonyms of Penrose stairs

Origin of Penrose stairs

After a drawing by Lionel Penrose and Roger Penrose.

Questions about Penrose stairs

What does Penrose stairs mean?
Penrose stairs means an impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to depict such a loop.
What part of speech is Penrose stairs?
Penrose stairs is a noun.

Words near Penrose stairs in the dictionary

  1. Penrose drains
  2. Penrose mechanism
  3. Penrose process
  4. Penrose staircase
  5. Penrose staircases
  6. Penrose stairs
  7. Penrose steps
  8. Penrose transform
  9. Penrose transforms
  10. Penrose triangle
  11. Penrose triangles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Penrose stairs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Penrose stairs.wav.

Cite this entry: “Penrose stairs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penrose_stairs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.