STEPS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does steps mean? 

• STEPS (noun)
  The noun STEPS has 2 senses:

1. a flight of stairs or a flight of steps

2. the course along which a person has walked or is walking in

  Familiarity information: STEPS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STEPS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A flight of stairs or a flight of steps

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

stairs; steps

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

staircase; stairway (a way of access (upward and downward) consisting of a set of steps)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

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

ladder (steps consisting of two parallel members connected by rungs; for climbing up or down)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The course along which a person has walked or is walking in

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Context example:

his steps turned toward home

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

course; path; track (a line or route along which something travels or moves)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

 Context examples 

What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?

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

The cell cycle consists of a series of steps during which the chromosomes and other cell material double to make two copies.

(Cell cycle, NCI Dictionary)

Mercury’s great valley is bound by two large fault scarps—cliff-like landforms that resemble stair steps.

(‘Great Valley’ Found on Mercury, NASA)

Taking two or three quick steps, as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came out.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This gene plays a role in regulation of the early steps of DNA replication.

(CDC6 Gene, NCI Thesaurus)

Calcium (Ca++) is required for each of these steps.

(Extrinsic Prothrombin Activation Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

The following steps of GGR-NER and TCR-NER are similar.

(Nucleotide Excision Repair Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

Elevated intracellular Ca causes adaptation by at least two different molecular steps: inhibition of the activity of adenylyl cyclase via CAMKII-dependent phosphorylation and down-regulation of the affinity of the CNG channel to cAMP.

(Olfactory Transduction Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

Propionyl-CoA has three carbons and succinyl-CoA has four carbons, so one of the first steps in this pathway is the carboxylation of propionyl-CoA with an input of energy from ATP.

(Oxidation of Odd-Numbered Chain Fatty Acid Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached it.

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