Word.ws English Dictionary

stepped up to the plate

stepped up to the plate is the simple past and past participle of step up to the plate.

Meaning of step up to the plate

Verb

step up to the plate (third-person singular simple present steps up to the plate, present participle stepping up to the plate, simple past and past participle stepped up to the plate)

  1. (US, idiomatic) To initiate action; to assume or take a responsibility.
    • Surround yourself with good people who can reliably step up to the plate and solve problems when they occur.2008 June 12, Beth Stackpole, “The IT pro's vacation planner”, in Computerworld, retrieved 17 Jun 2020
    Synonyms:
    volunteer, offer

Questions about stepped up to the plate

What is stepped up to the plate the simple past and past participle of?
Stepped up to the plate is the simple past and past participle of step up to the plate.

Words near stepped up to the plate in the dictionary

  1. stepped reckoner
  2. stepped reckoners
  3. stepped to
  4. stepped up
  5. stepped up one's game
  6. stepped up to the plate
  7. stepped-up
  8. steppedst
  9. steppeland
  10. steppelands
  11. steppelike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stepped up to the plate (page history and authors); step up to the plate (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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Cite this entry: “stepped up to the plate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stepped_up_to_the_plate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.