Stairstep

Part of speech: noun, adjective, verb

Definitions

1. One tread or riser of a staircase, the level part a person stands on when climbing ; having a form that rises in even, graduated levels like a flight of stairs ; to move upward or arrange something in a series of regular steps
2. A single level step in a flight of stairs ; describing something arranged in successive rising tiers like a set of stairs ; to climb or organize something in evenly spaced increments
3. The individual tread of a staircase ; resembling a flight of stairs in its rising, tiered pattern ; to progress or form in a series of distinct, ascending levels

Etymology: "Stairstep" is a plain compound: "stair" joined to "step," the two English words it is built from. "Stair" comes from Old English "stæger," and "step" from Old English "stæpe," both ancient Germanic words, so the compound was assembled from native material rather than borrowed from another language. Its literal sense is the single tread or rung of a staircase, which is the sense the noun still carries. The word's most useful extension is visual. Because a flight of stairs rises in regular tiers, the same image was applied to anything with that shape, so "stairstep" came to describe a pattern or sequence of ascending levels. The verb follows naturally from that picture: to progress or form in distinct, rising stages, one level at a time rather than in a smooth slope.

Synonyms: step, tread