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Escalator
Definitions
- 1 Anything that escalates.
"Fourth, communication researchers study the role of stress and negative attitudes as key contributors to conflict, anger as an escalator of conflict, and emotional residues as barriers to reconciliation."
- 2 a stairway whose steps move continuously on a circulating belt wordnet
- 3 A motor-driven mechanical device consisting of a continuous loop of steps that automatically conveys people from one floor to another.
"There is a plastic molly-guard covering the escalator's shutdown button to prevent little kids from pushing it and stopping the escalator."
- 4 a clause in a contract that provides for an increase or a decrease in wages or prices or benefits etc. depending on certain conditions (as a change in the cost of living index) wordnet
- 5 An upward or progressive course.
"Lots of people fell for the pitch that real estate was an up-only escalator into the American Dream"
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- 6 An escalator clause.
"They agreed to a cost-of-living escalator."
- 1 To move by escalator. informal, intransitive
"We escalatored to the second floor."
Etymology
From the former trademark Escalator, created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, from Latin e (“from, out of”) + scala (“ladder”) + -tor, which forms nouns of agency. See the appendix. Broader usage may be influenced by escalate, and is equivalent to escalate + -or. For an alternative etymology, see the Online Etymology Dictionary.
From the former trademark Escalator, created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, from Latin e (“from, out of”) + scala (“ladder”) + -tor, which forms nouns of agency. See the appendix. Broader usage may be influenced by escalate, and is equivalent to escalate + -or. For an alternative etymology, see the Online Etymology Dictionary.
See also for "escalator"
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