stepper

Noun

stepper (plural steppers)

1. A person or animal that steps, especially energetically or high.
   • I marvel that these steppers upon flowers childishly make no provision for the pitfalls concealed beneath them.1872, Fanny Fern, Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things
2. A dancer.
   • Although Martha Haskins never won a prize at a dance, she was proud of having been “a purty good stepper."2009, William Dusinberre, Strategies for Survival, page 170
   • A Motion Picture Classic writer who witnessed the Reids at the Sunset Inn wrote, “Wally is some stepper. Let me tell you the boy can dance."2010, E.J. Fleming, Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol, page 155
3. (more specifically) A dancer in a step show.
   • Before he entered high school, he was a "stepper,” a practitioner of a local Philadelphia dance form derived from tapping.2001, New York Times Staff, The New York Times Dance Reviews 2000, page 372
   • Just as the early circular routines of fraternity and sorority steppers suggest the influence of patting juba, so too may they reflect another early African American dance form, the “ring shout.”2010, Glenn Hinson, William Ferris, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, page 230
4. A kind of electric motor that advances in steps rather than smoothly.
5. A device used in the manufacture of microcircuits to apply a photolithographic image repeatedly, at regular intervals (by imaging, moving a step and repeating).
6. A type of exercise machine.
   • I am working out on the stepper, but I feel like dancing instead.2016, Vidyangi, Vertical Living
7. Anything that moves or advances in steps.
   • The Age field is a numeric stepper tool that allows you to scroll through a specific range of numbers.2013, Matthew David, HTML5: Designing Rich Internet Applications, page 58
8. (colloquial, especially, in plural) A shoe, especially a fashionable or attractive shoe, or one used for step-dancing.
   • "And I would dress smack daddy down." Tawanda throws her head back, laughing. "The other girls was all lacy-like, with high heels; I had steppers, low heels like men's spectator shoes, and pointy toes. I got the foot for it and I got the height; I would put on the suit, the pantsuit, go out there...2005, Michele McKnight Baker, Sandpaper Sisters, FaithWalk Publishing, →ISBN, page 33
   • “[…] what are you wearing tonight?” “Well, I went to the mall and found the most amazing boots ever!” “Oh God, you and these boots. Ariel, you could open up a shoe store as many shoes as you have.” “Shut up and look at my new steppers.”2020, Raven Simmons, The Story of Me: Part 1 Caterpillar Phase, Part 2 Cocoon Phase, Christian Faith Publishing, Inc., →ISBN
9. (UK, historical, obsolete, slang) A prison treadmill.
   • On the treadmill we were shut up in little boxes, almost pitch dark, and the handrail to catch hold of when treading the mill was so high […] I refused point blank, one morning, to go on the stepper on plea of illness, […]1883, George Atkins Brine, The King of the Beggars, page 164
10. (slang) A foot (appendage of the leg).
11. (slang) The feet of anthropomorphic animals, especially paws.
12. A kind of driving rhythm or drumbeat in reggae music.