Word.ws English Dictionary

step

UK/stɛp/

step noun: an advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.

step: an advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace
Image: Ashashyou, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

step (plural steps)

  1. An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
    • 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...
    Synonyms:
    stride
  2. 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.
    • The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.1624, Sir Henry Wotton, The Elements Of Architecture
    • 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.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
  3. 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.
  4. The button joining a glass's stem to its foot.
  5. A distinct part of a process; stage; phase.
    • He improved step by step, or by steps.
    • The first step is to find a job.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
    • To derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be a very great step in philosophy.1704, I[saac] N[ewton], “(please specify |book=1 to 3)”, in Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. […], London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin]...
  8. A small space or distance.
    • It is but a step.
  9. A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
  10. A gait; manner of walking.
    • The approach of a man is often known by his step.
    • Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step.1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC
  11. Proceeding; measure; action; act.
    • The reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.1717, Alexander Pope, Preface to his collection of poems
    • Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.c. 1792, William Cowper, The Needless Alarm
  12. (in plural) A walk; passage.
    • Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree.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
Show 9 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (in plural) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
  2. 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.
  3. (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.
  4. (machines) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
  5. 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.
  6. A change of position effected by a motion of translation.
    • A change of position effected by a motion of translation will be called a step.1878, William Kingdon Clifford, Elements of Dynamic: An Introduction to the Study of Motion
  7. 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.
  8. (Netherlands, slang) Kick scooter.
  9. Stepping (style of dance)

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.
    • 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.2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly)
    1. (intransitive) To don with a stepping action.
      • He stepped into his pants.
  2. (intransitive) To walk; to go (on foot, especially) a little distance.
    • Come one, come all. Step right up!
    • The convention roared as the president stepped to the podium.
  3. (intransitive) To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
    • Home from his Morning-Task , the Swain retreats, His flock before him stepping to the fold.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
  4. To dance.
    • At arms length with left hands clasped they moved back where facing each other they stepped in time to their dance embrace.2013, Calvin Vraa, The Last Pathway Home, page 179
    • 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.2013, Jean Fullerton, Call Nurse Millie
  5. (figuratively, intransitive) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
    • They are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity.1715–1720, Homer, “Book preface”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC
  6. (transitive) To set, as the foot.
    • One of the women, Elsie, stepped her foot inside to help the woman.2010, Charles E. Miller, Winds of Mercy: 40 Short Stories, page 219
  7. (transitive) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.
    • 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.1898, Joseph Conrad, Youth
  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.
    • You tryna be steppin right now? You better bring it if so.
    Antonyms:
    step off

Noun (2)

step (plural steps)

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

Proper noun capitalized: STEP

STEP

  1. (US, abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Smart Traveler Enrollment Program.
  2. (UK, abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Sixth Term Examination Paper.
  3. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production.

Noun (3) capitalized: STEP

STEP (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of striatal-enriched protein tyrosine phosphatase.
  2. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of serial transverse enteroplasty.

step meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu

step in Hindi

pace
पद pad, क़दम qadam

step in Marathi

पायरी, पाऊल

step in Urdu

pace
قَدَم qadam, پَد pad

step in Telugu

అడుగు
More languagesFewer languages
step in Malayalam
പടി
step in Kannada
ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ
step in Gujarati
પગલું, પગથિયું
step in Sanskrit
पद pada
step in Pashto
قدم qadam
step in Arabic
خُطْوَة ḵuṭwa, خَطْوَة ḵaṭwa, قِيَافَة qiyāfa, مِشْيَة mišya
step in Malay
langkah
step in Indonesian
langkah, langkah kaki, berjalan
step in Persian
گام gām
step in Thai
ก้าว gâao, ขั้น kân, ฝีเท้า fǐi-táao, ขั้นตอน kân-dtɔɔn
step in Vietnamese
bước, bậc, bực
step in Myanmar
အလှမ်း a.hlam:

Examples of step in a sentence

  • to step to one of the neighbors
  • Through the open front door ran Jessamy, down the steps to where Kitto was sitting at the bottom with the pram beside him.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 122:
  • I have lately taken steps[…]to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.1879, George Washington Cable, Old Creole Days:
  • Moon has also requested that government officials take additional steps to help fight pollution, his spokesman said.2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)
  • 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.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

All 40 example sentences with step

Synonyms of step

Antonyms

Forms of step

Noun
pluralsteps
Verb
third-person singular presentsteps
present participlestepping
past participlestepped
paststepped
past participle (dated)stept
past (dated)stept
past participle (obsolete)stope
past (obsolete)stope

Past tense of step: stepped

Plural of step: steps

Origin of step

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.

Clipping of stepchild and stepsibling.

Words formed from step

Phrases with step

95 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with step

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about step

What does step mean?
Step means an advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
What is step in Hindi?
Step in Hindi is पद (pad), क़दम (qadam). See Step meaning in Hindi.
How do you use step in a sentence?
to step to one of the neighbors
What part of speech is step?
Step can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce step?
Step is pronounced /stɛp/ (UK).
What is the plural of step?
The plural of step is steps.

Words near step in the dictionary

  1. stentorophonic
  2. stentors
  3. stents
  4. Stenzel
  5. Stenzels
  6. step
  7. step aerobics
  8. step and repeat
  9. step aside
  10. step back
  11. step between

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: step (page history and authors); STEP (page history and authors); step (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); step (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); step (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); step (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); step (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-us-step.ogg.

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