steepen
/ˈstiː.pən/
steepen verb: to make steeper.
Verb
steepen (third-person singular simple present steepens, present participle steepening, simple past and past participle steepened)
- To make steeper.
- With a rare and beautiful ease one can now ring up a boffin, as I did the other day, and say: "As a price for not opposing our Parliamentary Powers for a new marshalling yard, the Council at X demands that the bridge over X Lane shall have 16 ft. 6 in. headroom. This means steepening our gradient...1960 April, G. F. Fiennes, “Unpunctuality - the cause and the cure”, in Trains Illustrated, page 244
- To become steeper.
- As the way steepened […] I could detect in the hollow of the hill some traces of the old path.
- Soon after Crowhurst, the down grade steepens to 1 in 100 as the line descends the side of a valley, at the mouth of which a glimpse of the sea can be caught—the only one.1957 August, H. P. White, “The Tonbridge-Hastings Line and its Traffic”, in Railway Magazine, page 528
steepen meaning in Tamil
steepen in Tamil
- செங்குத்தாக்கு
Examples of steepen in a sentence
- This means steepening our gradient from 1 in 70 to 1 in 65 for half a mile on a 20-chain curve.1960 April, G. F. Fiennes, “Unpunctuality - the cause and the cure”, in Trains Illustrated, page 244:
- Immediately beyond Churn Lane the climb begins at 1 in 78, steepening to 1 in 66.1960 March, H. P. White, “The Hawkhurst branch of the Southern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 170:
Forms of steepen
| third-person singular present | steepens |
|---|---|
| present participle | steepening |
| past participle | steepened |
| past | steepened |
Origin of steepen
From steep + -en. Compare Old English stīepan (“to steepen”).
Words formed from steepen
Questions about steepen
- What does steepen mean?
- Steepen means to make steeper.
- What is steepen in Tamil?
- Steepen in Tamil is செங்குத்தாக்கு. See Steepen meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use steepen in a sentence?
- This means steepening our gradient from 1 in 70 to 1 in 65 for half a mile on a 20-chain curve.
- What part of speech is steepen?
- Steepen is a verb.
- How do you pronounce steepen?
- Steepen is pronounced /ˈstiː.pən/.
- What is the past tense of steepen?
- The past tense of steepen is steepened.
Words near steepen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: steepen (page history and authors); steepen (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-steepen.wav.
Cite this entry: “steepen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steepen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.