Word.ws English Dictionary

stepquote

stepquote noun: a message in the grid of a crossword, split between multiple lights and arranged in a zigzag or steplike pattern.

Noun

stepquote (plural stepquotes)

  1. (crosswording) A message in the grid of a crossword, split between multiple lights and arranged in a zigzag or steplike pattern.
    • No Stepquote seems to make sense. The open diagonal, 63 to 11, gives 'KLEURTIWIAAOUOA,' which doesn't have the feel of a message at first glance, even reading in the other direction.1986, Herbert Resnicow, The Crossword Code, →ISBN
    • There were a couple of areas he had trouble with, and they formed important parts of the stepquote, and in the end he couldn't work it out.1992, The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories
  2. (crosswording) A crossword puzzle including such a message.
    • Later Joseph Cotten and I became pen pals because he liked my Stepquotes, and Frank Sinatra's secretary proudly informed me that her boss does the Times puzzles in ink.1984, Eugene T. Maleska, Across and Down: The Crossword Puzzle World, Touchstone
    • A typical Maleskan stepquote's theme answer might read: THEFA/ASHIO/ONWEAR/RSOUTMOREAPPA/ARELTH/HANTH/HEMAN: " The fashion wears out more apparel than the man."2020 March 17, Adrienne Raphel, Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them, Penguin, →ISBN, page 44

Forms of stepquote

pluralstepquotes

Origin of stepquote

From step + quote. Coined by Eugene Maleska.

Questions about stepquote

What does stepquote mean?
Stepquote means a message in the grid of a crossword, split between multiple lights and arranged in a zigzag or steplike pattern.
What part of speech is stepquote?
Stepquote is a noun.
What is the plural of stepquote?
The plural of stepquote is stepquotes.

Words near stepquote in the dictionary

  1. steppings
  2. steppingstone
  3. steppingstones
  4. steppogenin
  5. Stepps
  6. stepquote
  7. stepquotes
  8. steprelation
  9. steprelations
  10. steprelationship
  11. steprelationships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stepquote (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: “stepquote.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stepquote. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.