stair-case

Noun

staircase (plural staircases)

1. A flight of stairs; a stairway.
   • I was on the staircase by the bell / Blinded by the black magician's spell2011, “13 Candles”, performed by Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats
2. A connected set of flights of stairs; a stairwell.
   • 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...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...
3. A set of locks (enclosed sections of waterway) mounted one above the next.

See all 5 meanings of staircase