Leap vs Step - What's the difference?
leap | step |
To jump.
* anonymous, Merlin
* 1600 , anonymous, The wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll , act 4
* 1783 , , from the “Illiad” in Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres , lecture 4, page 65
* 1999 , Ai, Vice: New & Selected Poems , page 78
To pass over by a leap or jump.
To copulate with (a female beast); to cover.
To cause to leap.
The act of leaping or jumping.
* L'Estrange
* H. Sweet
The distance traversed by a leap or jump.
(figuratively) A significant move forward.
* 1969 July 20, , as he became the first man to step on the moon
(mining) A fault.
Copulation with, or coverture of, a female beast.
(music) A passing from one note to another by an interval, especially by a long one, or by one including several other intermediate intervals.
(obsolete) A basket.
A weel or wicker trap for fish.
(Webster 1913)
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 leap and step
is that leap is to jump while step is to walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.In transitive terms the difference between leap and step
is that leap is to cause to leap while step is to set, as the foot.leap
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) lepen, from (etyl) ‘to stumble’).Verb
- It is grete nede a man to go bak to recouer the better his leep
- I, I defie thee: wert not thou next him when he leapt into the Riuer?
- Th’ infernal monarch rear’d his horrid head, Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune’s arm should lay His dark dominions open to the day.
- It is better to leap into the void.
- to leap a wall or a ditch
- to leap a horse across a ditch
Usage notes
The choice between leapt and leaped is mostly a matter of regional differences: leapt is preferred in British English and leaped in American English. According to research by John Algeo (British or American English? , Cambridge, 2006), leapt is used 80% of the time in UK and 32% in the US.Synonyms
* (jump from one location to another) bound, hop, jump, spring * (jump upwards) bound, hop, jump, springNoun
(en noun)- Wickedness comes on by degrees, and sudden leaps from one extreme to another are unnatural.
- Changes of tone may proceed either by leaps or glides.
- That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.
- (Wyclif)
Derived terms
* by leaps and bounds * leap day * leapfrog * leaping lizards * leap of faith * leaps and bounds * leap second * leap year * look before you leap * quantum leapEtymology 2
From (etyl) leep, from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* leepAnagrams
* English irregular verbsstep
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.