stepping

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!
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
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

See all 34 meanings of step