What is the difference between step and tread?
step | tread |
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)
To step or walk (on or over something); to trample.
* Alexander Pope
* Milton
To step or walk upon.
To beat or press with the feet.
To go through or accomplish by walking, dancing, etc.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
* Shakespeare
To crush under the foot; to trample in contempt or hatred; to subdue.
* Bible, Psalms xliv. 5
To copulate; said of (especially male) birds.
(of a male bird) To copulate with.
(tread)
A step.
A manner of stepping.
* Tennyson
(obsolete) A way; a track or path.
The grooves carved into the face of a tire, used to give the tire traction.
The grooves on the bottom of a shoe or other footwear, used to give grip or traction.
The horizontal part of a step in a flight of stairs.
The sound made when someone or something is walking.
* 1886 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde)
* 1896 , (Bret Harte), Barker's Luck and Other Stories
(biology) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
The act of copulation in birds.
(fortification) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes, or strikes its feet together.
Tread is a synonym of step.
In intransitive terms the difference between step and tread
is that step is to walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely while tread is to copulate; said of (especially male) birds.In transitive terms the difference between step and tread
is that step is to set, as the foot while tread is to step or walk upon.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.
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 upNoun
(en noun)Synonyms
* strideDerived 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 cautiouslySee also
* step-Statistics
*Anagrams
* * * 1000 English basic words ----tread
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) treden, from (etyl) {{term, tredan, , to tread, step on, trample, traverse, pass over, enter upon, roam through , lang=ang}}, from (etyl) , Norwegian treda.Verb
- He trod back and forth wearily.
- Don't tread on the lawn.
- Fools rush in where angels fear to tread .
- ye that stately tread , or lowly creep
- Actors tread the boards.
- to tread''' a path; to '''tread''' land when too light; a well-'''trodden path
- I am resolved to forsake Malta, tread a pilgrimage to fair Jerusalem.
- They have measured many a mile, / To tread a measure with you on this grass.
- Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
- (Shakespeare)
- (Chaucer)
Usage notes
* "(term)" is not commonly used in the UK and is less common in the US as well. It is apparently used more often in (tread water). * (term) is sometimes used as a past and past participle, especially in the US.Derived terms
* betread * * tread water * untrod * treading on eggshellsUse of expression in delicate situations; be nice
Etymology 2
From the above verb.Noun
(en noun)- She is coming, my own, my sweet; / Were it ever so airy a tread , / My heart would hear her and beat.
- (Shakespeare)
- The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.
- But when, after a singularly heavy tread and the jingle of spurs on the platform, the door flew open to the newcomer, he seemed a realization of our worst expectations.