treads

Noun

tread (plural treads)

1. A step taken with the foot.

   Synonyms:

   run

2. A manner of stepping.
   • She is coming, my own, my sweet; / Were it ever so airy a tread, / My heart would hear her and beat.1855, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
3. The sound made when someone or something is walking.
   • The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
4. (obsolete) A way; a track or path.
   • And the queint Mazes in the wanton greene,
     For lacke of tread are vndistinguishable.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
5. A walking surface in a stairway on which the foot is placed.
   • The dog was waiting for him, her paws on the second tread, pere regardant with a happy lolling tongue.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 25
6. The grooves carved into the face of a tire, used to give the tire traction.

See all 21 meanings of tread