• (British, America) IPA: /stɛp/

step (plural steps)

1. An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384 ↗:

     Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

2. A rest, or one of a set of rests, for the foot in ascending or descending, as a stair, or a rung of a ladder.

   • The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.

3. A distinct part of a process; stage; phase.

   He improved step by step, or by steps.

   The first step is to find a job.

4. A running board where passengers step to get on and off the bus.

   The driver must have a clear view of the step in order to prevent accidents.

5. The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running.

   One step is generally about three feet, but may be more or less.

   • To derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be a very great step in philosophy.

6. A small space or distance.

   It is but a step.

7. A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
8. A gait; manner of walking.

   The approach of a man is often known by his step.

   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,

     Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step.

9. Proceeding; measure; action; act.
   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Preface to his collection of poems

     The reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.

   • Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.

   • I have lately taken steps […] to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.

   • 2019, [https://web.archive.org/web/20190311070055/https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/south-korea-proposes-rain-project-with-china-to-cut-pollution/4819207.html VOA Learning English] (public domain)

     Moon has also requested that government officials take additional steps to help fight pollution, his spokesman said.

10. (plural) A walk; passage.

    • Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree.

11. (plural) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
12. (nautical) A framing in wood or iron which is intended to receive an upright shaft; specifically, a block of wood, or a solid platform upon the keelson, supporting the heel of the mast.
13. (machines) One of a series of offsets, or parts, resembling the steps of stairs, as one of the series of parts of a cone pulley on which the belt runs.
14. (machines) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
15. (music) The interval between two contiguous degrees of the scale.

    Usage note: The word tone is often used as the name of this interval; but there is evident incongruity in using tone for indicating the interval between tones. As the word scale is derived from the Italian scala, a ladder, the intervals may well be called steps.

16. (kinematics) A change of position effected by a motion of translation.
17. (programming) A constant difference between consecutive values in a series.

    Printing from 0 to 9 with a step of 3 will display 0, 3, 6 and 9.

18. (slang) A stepsibling.

• stride

• French: pas
• German: Schritt
• Italian: passo
• Portuguese: passo
• Russian: шаг
• Spanish: paso

• French: marche
• German: Stufe, Sprosse
• Italian: scalino
• Portuguese: degrau
• Russian: ступе́нька
• Spanish: peldaño, escalón

• French: étape

• Russian: подно́жка

• French: pas
• Portuguese: passo
• Russian: шаг
• Spanish: paso

• Russian: шаг

• Italian: passo
• Portuguese: pegada
• Russian: след
• Spanish: paso

• German: Schritt
• Portuguese: andadura, porte
• Russian: похо́дка
• Spanish: paso

• French: étape
• German: Schritt
• Italian: tappa
• Portuguese: passo, etapa, etapa
• Russian: шаг
• Spanish: paso, etapa

• Russian: стремянка

• Russian: ступе́нь

step (steps, present participle stepping; past stepped, past participle stepped)

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.
2. (intransitive) To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.

   to step to one of the neighbors

3. (intransitive) To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
   • Home the swain retreats, His flock before him stepping to the fold. — James Thomson
4. (intransitive, figuratively) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
   • 1715, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book preface”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: Printed by W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott between the Temple-Gates, OCLC 670734254 ↗:

     They are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity.

5. (transitive) To set, as the foot.
   • 2010, Charles E. Miller, Winds of Mercy: 40 Short Stories (page 219)

     One of the women, Elsie, stepped her foot inside to help the woman.

6. (transitive, nautical) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.
   • 1898, Joseph Conrad, Youth

     We put everything straight, stepped the long-boat's mast for our skipper, who was in charge of her, and I was not sorry to sit down for a moment.

• French: faire un pas, marcher
• German: treten, schreiten
• Portuguese: dar um passo
• Russian: шага́ть

• French: marcher
• German: treten, schreiten
• Portuguese: dar um pulo
• Russian: шага́ть

• German: treten
• Russian: перенести́сь

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