STEP ON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does step on mean? 

• STEP ON (verb)
  The verb STEP ON has 1 sense:

1. place or press the foot on

  Familiarity information: STEP ON used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STEP ON (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Place or press the foot on

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

step on; tread on

Context example:

He stepped on the hem of her long gown

Hypernyms (to "step on" is one way to...):

step; tread (put down or press the foot, place the foot)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the white plain.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Any substance that inhibits amidophosphoribosyltransferase, an enzyme that catalyzes the commiting step on de novo purine synthesis.

(Amidophosphoribosyltransferase Inhibitor, NCI Thesaurus)

Yes, those are the Privy Gardens, said my uncle, and there is the window out of which Charles took his last step on to the scaffold.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If membrane-like structures could be formed by vinyl cyanide, it would be an important step on the pathway to life on Saturn’s moon Titan.

(NASA Finds Moon of Saturn Has Chemical That Could Form ‘Membranes’, NASA)

Then I gave Maud careful instructions for lowering away and went into the hold to the step on the schooner’s bottom.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Three years ago the Admiral, my honoured uncle, bought a cottage at Twickenham for us all to spend our summers in; and my aunt and I went down to it quite in raptures; but it being excessively pretty, it was soon found necessary to be improved, and for three months we were all dirt and confusion, without a gravel walk to step on, or a bench fit for use.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or a cheese-cake—then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, Good night, Miss Jane.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed—Good evening, Mr. Rivers.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Instinct made him step on the accelerator with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind, and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easygoing blue coupé.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)