STAIRCASE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does staircase mean? 

• STAIRCASE (noun)
  The noun STAIRCASE has 1 sense:

1. a way of access (upward and downward) consisting of a set of steps

  Familiarity information: STAIRCASE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STAIRCASE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A way of access (upward and downward) consisting of a set of steps

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

staircase; stairway

Hypernyms ("staircase" is a kind of...):

way (any artifact consisting of a road or path affording passage from one place to another)

Meronyms (parts of "staircase"):

landing (an intermediate platform in a staircase)

stairhead (platform at the top of a staircase)

stair; step (support consisting of a place to rest the foot while ascending or descending a stairway)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "staircase"):

backstairs (a second staircase at the rear of a building)

companionway (a stairway or ladder that leads from one deck to another on a ship)

escalator; moving staircase; moving stairway (a stairway whose steps move continuously on a circulating belt)

emergency exit; fire escape (a stairway (often on the outside of a building) that permits exit in the case of fire or other emergency)

flight; flight of stairs; flight of steps (a stairway (set of steps) between one floor or landing and the next)

ghat (stairway in India leading down to a landing on the water)

stairs; steps (a flight of stairs or a flight of steps)

ramp (a movable staircase that passengers use to board or leave an aircraft)

Holonyms ("staircase" is a part of...):

building; edifice (a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place)

 Context examples 

He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“How came I up that staircase!” he replied, greatly surprised.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And the staircase—You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened, and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watched and waited.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

So I sat at the staircase window, until he came out with another chair and joined me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

From every side men, women, and children were rushing wildly for shelter, swarming up the staircases and into the caves in a mad stampede.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Half-way down this staircase is a small landing, with another passage running into it at right angles.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where no light of day ever peeped in, and said, “Cat-skin, you may lie and sleep there.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Starting and looking up, she saw, across the lobby she had just reached, Edmund himself, standing at the head of a different staircase.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

"I flatter myself," replied Elinor, "that even under the disadvantage of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your own house as faultless as you now do this."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)