Word.ws English Dictionary

stepping stones

stepping stones is the plural of stepping stone.

Meaning of stepping stone

Noun

stepping stone (plural stepping stones)

  1. A stone that can be stepped on in crossing something, especially a marsh or creek.
    • Falling—her veriest stepping-stone
      Shall form the pedestal of a throne— […]1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems
    Synonyms:
    means, way
  2. (idiomatic) Something used as a way to progress to something or somewhere else.
    • He was full of ambition, and force, and life, intending all sorts of great things, and meaning to make his position a stepping stone to all that was excellent in public life.

Questions about stepping stones

What is stepping stones the plural of?
Stepping stones is the plural of stepping stone.

Words near stepping stones in the dictionary

  1. stepping out on someone
  2. stepping over
  3. stepping razor
  4. stepping razors
  5. stepping stone
  6. stepping stones
  7. stepping switch
  8. stepping switches
  9. stepping to
  10. stepping up
  11. stepping up one's game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stepping stones (page history and authors); stepping stone (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 stones.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stepping_stones. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.