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Pace vs Step - What's the difference?

pace | step |

Step is a synonym of pace.



As nouns the difference between pace and step

is that pace is passage, route while step is an advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.

As verbs the difference between pace and step

is that pace is walk to and fro in a small space while step is to move the foot in walking; to advance or recede by raising and moving one of the feet to another resting place, or by moving both feet in succession.

As an adjective pace

is describing a bowler who bowls fast balls.

As a preposition pace

is with all due respect to.

As an acronym PACE

is Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

As a proper noun Pace

is {{surname|lang=en}.

pace

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) pas, (etyl) pas, and their source, (etyl) passus.

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) Passage, route.
  • # (obsolete) One's journey or route.
  • # (obsolete) A passage through difficult terrain; a mountain pass or route vulnerable to ambush etc.
  • #* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.1:
  • But when she saw them gone she forward went, / As lay her journey, through that perlous Pace [...].
  • # (obsolete) An aisle in a church.
  • Step.
  • # A step taken with the foot.
  • # The distance covered in a step (or sometimes two), either vaguely or according to various specific set measurements. How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement : English Customary Weights and Measures, © Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (§: Distance , ¶ ? 6)
  • Even at the duel, standing 10 paces apart, he could have satisfied Aaron’s honor.
  • I have perambulated your field, and estimate its perimeter to be 219 paces .
  • Way of stepping.
  • # A manner of walking, running or dancing; the rate or style of how someone moves with their feet.
  • #* {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=June 9 , author=Owen Phillips , title=Euro 2012: Netherlands 0-1 Denmark , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Netherlands, one of the pre-tournament favourites, combined their undoubted guile, creativity, pace and attacking quality with midfield grit and organisation.}}
  • # Any of various gaits of a horse, specifically a 2-beat, lateral gait.
  • Speed or velocity in general.
  • (cricket) A measure of the hardness of a pitch and of the tendency of a cricket ball to maintain its speed after bouncing.
  • The collective noun for donkeys.
  • * 1952 , G. B. Stern, The Donkey Shoe , The Macmillan Company (1952), page 29:
  • but at Broadstairs and other places along the coast, a pace of donkeys stood on the sea-shore expectant (at least, their owners were expectant) of children clamouring to ride.
  • * 2006 , " Drop the dead donkeys", The Economist , 9 November 2006:
  • A pace of donkeys fans out in different directions.
  • * 2007 , Elinor De Wire, The Lightkeepers' Menagerie: Stories of Animals at Lighthouses , Pineapple Press (2007), ISBN 9781561643905, page 200:
  • Like a small farm, the lighthouse compound had its chattering'' of chicks, ''pace'' of donkeys, ''troop'' of horses, and ''fold of sheep.
    Derived terms
    * pace car * pacemaker * pace setter * pacer

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (cricket) Describing a bowler who bowls fast balls.
  • Verb

    (pac)
  • Walk to and fro in a small space.
  • * 1874 , (Marcus Clarke), (For the Term of His Natural Life) Chapter V
  • Groups of men, in all imaginable attitudes, were lying, standing, sitting, or pacing up and down.
  • Set the speed in a race.
  • Measure by walking.
  • Derived terms
    * (set the speed in a race) pacemaker

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) '', “in peace”, ablative form of ''pax , “peace”.

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • (formal) With all due respect to.
  • Usage notes
    Used when expressing a contrary opinion, in formal speech or writing.

    Etymology 3

    Alteration of Pasch.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Easter.
  • Derived terms
    * pace egg

    References

    step

    English

    Verb

  • To move the foot in walking; to advance or recede by raising and moving one of the feet to another resting place, or by moving both feet in succession.
  • To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.
  • * Home the swain retreats, His flock before him stepping to the fold.
  • (figuratively) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
  • * They are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity. — (Alexander Pope)
  • To set, as the foot.
  • (nautical) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step ; to erect.
  • * 1898 , (Joseph Conrad),
  • We put everything straight, stepped the long-boat's mast for our skipper, who was in charge of her, and I was not sorry to sit down for a moment.

    Derived terms

    * step aside (to walk a little distance from the rest; to retire from company) * step down * step forth (to move or come forth) * step forward * step in/step into * step-in * step out ** (military) To increase the length, but not the rapidity, of the step, extending it to thirty-tree inches ** To go out for a short distance or a short time * step short (military) (to diminish the length or rapidity of the step according to the established rules) * step off (to measure by steps, or paces; hence, to divide, as a space, or to form a series of marks, by successive measurements, as with dividers) * step up

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An advance or movement made from one foot to the other; a pace.
  • *
  • *: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.
  • A rest, or one of a set of rests, for the foot in ascending or descending, as a stair, or a rung of a ladder.
  • *Sir (Henry Wotton) (1568-1639)
  • *:The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.}}
  • A running board where passengers step to get on and off the bus.
  • :
  • The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running. Used also figuratively of any kind of progress.
  • :
  • *(Isaac Newton) (1642-1727)
  • *:To derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be a very great step in philosophy.
  • A small space or distance.
  • :
  • A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
  • A gait; manner of walking.
  • :
  • *1900 , , (The House Behind the Cedars) , Chapter I,
  • *:Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step .
  • Proceeding; measure; action; act.
  • *(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • *:The reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.
  • *(William Cowper) (1731-1800)
  • *:Beware of desperate steps . The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.
  • *(George Washington Cable) (1844-1925)
  • *:I have lately taken steps to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.
  • (lb) A walk; passage.
  • *(John Dryden)
  • *:Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree.
  • (lb) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
  • (lb) A framing in wood or iron which is intended to receive an upright shaft; specif., a block of wood, or a solid platform upon the keelson, supporting the heel of the mast.
  • (lb) One of a series of offsets, or parts, resembling the steps of stairs, as one of the series of parts of a cone pulley on which the belt runs.
  • (lb) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
  • (lb) The interval between two contiguous degrees of the scale.
  • :Usage note: The word tone is often used as the name of this interval; but there is evident incongruity in using tone for indicating the interval between tones. As the word scale is derived from the Italian scala , a ladder, the intervals may well be called steps.
  • (lb) A change of position effected by a motion of translation.
  • :(William Kingdon Clifford)
  • Synonyms

    * stride

    Derived terms

    (Terms derived from the noun "step") * in step * out of step * step by step * stepwise * Back step', ' Half step , etc. See under back, half, etc. * Step grate : a form of grate for holding fuel, in which the bars rise above one another in the manner of steps. * To take steps : to take action; to move in a matter. * one step at a time: slowly and cautiously

    See also

    * step-

    Statistics

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    Anagrams

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