Staircase
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A flight of stairs; a stairway.
"I was on the staircase by the bell / Blinded by the black magician's spell"
- 2 a way of access (upward and downward) consisting of a set of steps wordnet
- 3 A connected set of flights of stairs; a stairwell.
"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."
- 4 A set of locks (enclosed sections of waterway) mounted one above the next.
- 1 To modify (a signal, a graph, etc.) to reduce a smooth curve to a series of discrete steps. transitive
"This leads to much smoother reconstructions in regions of moderate gradient and thus prevents staircasing."
- 2 To increase one's share in a co-ownership.
"It is a good idea to make plans for staircasing when you first buy your shared ownership home."
Example
More examples"The staircase leading to the rooftop is narrow, steep, and dark."
Etymology
From stair + case.
Related phrases
More for "staircase"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.