Word.ws English Dictionary

stepping in

stepping in is the present participle and gerund of step in.

Meaning of step in

Verb

step in (third-person singular simple present steps in, present participle stepping in, simple past and past participle stepped in)

  1. (intransitive) To act as a replacement or substitute.
    • McCoist unexpectedly ushered back a defender of his own with Kirk Broadfoot taking over from Steven Whittaker. There was, of course, another change, Kyle Bartley stepping in at centre-half to replace suspended Dorin Goian.2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record
  2. (intransitive) To get involved; to act.
    • HM Chief Inspector of Railways has stepped in to speed up work to resolve incidents of overspeeding, having been concerned that progress on the issue has been too slow.2026 February 18, David Stubbings, “ORR steps in to improve industry response to overspeed incidents”, in RAIL, number 1055, page 9

Questions about stepping in

What is stepping in the present participle and gerund of?
Stepping in is the present participle and gerund of step in.

Words near stepping in in the dictionary

  1. stepping back
  2. stepping between
  3. stepping feet illusion
  4. stepping foot
  5. stepping forward
  6. stepping in
  7. stepping into
  8. stepping into someone's shoes
  9. stepping into the breach
  10. stepping it
  11. stepping lively

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stepping in (page history and authors); step in (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: “stepping in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stepping_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.