Slope vs Step - What's the difference?
slope | step |
An area of ground that tends evenly upward or downward.
The degree to which a surface tends upward or downward.
(mathematics) The ratio of the vertical and horizontal distances between two points on a line; zero if the line is horizontal, undefined if it is vertical.
(mathematics) The slope of the line tangent to a curve at a given point.
The angle a roof surface makes with the horizontal, expressed as a ratio of the units of vertical rise to the units of horizontal length (sometimes referred to as run).
(vulgar, highly offensive, ethnic slur) A person of Chinese or other East Asian descent.
(label) To tend steadily upward or downward.
* , chapter=23
, title= (label) To form with a slope; to give an oblique or slanting direction to; to incline or slant.
To try to move surreptitiously.
(label) To hold a rifle at a slope with forearm perpendicular to the body in front holding the butt, the rifle resting on the shoulder.
(obsolete) Sloping.
* (Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
* (John Milton) (1608-1674)
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= 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),
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)
In intransitive terms the difference between slope and step
is that slope is to tend steadily upward or downward while step is to walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.In transitive terms the difference between slope and step
is that slope is to form with a slope; to give an oblique or slanting direction to; to incline or slant while step is to set, as the foot.As an adjective slope
is sloping.As an adverb slope
is slopingly.slope
English
Noun
(en noun)- I had to climb a small slope to get to the site.
- The road has a very sharp downward slope at that point.
- The slope of this line is 0.5
- The slope of a parabola increases linearly with ''x''.
- The slope of an asphalt shingle roof system should be 4:12 or greater.
Synonyms
* (area of ground that tends evenly upward or downward) bank, embankment, gradient, hill, incline * (degree to which a surface tends upward or downward) gradient * (mathematics) first derivative, gradient * Chinaman, ChinkVerb
(slop)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough.}}
Derived terms
* ski slope * slippery slope * slopingAdjective
(en adjective)- A bank not steep, but gently slope .
- Down the slope hills.
Anagrams
*References
step
English
Verb
Ideas coming down the track, passage=A “moving platform” scheme
- 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.