stepper

English

Etymology

From step +‎ -er.

Noun

stepper (plural steppers)

1. A person or animal that steps, especially energetically or high.
   • 1872, Fanny Fern, Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things:

     I marvel that these steppers upon flowers childishly make no provision for the pitfalls concealed beneath them.

2. A dancer.
   • 2009, William Dusinberre, Strategies for Survival, page 170:

     Although Martha Haskins never won a prize at a dance, she was proud of having been “a purty good stepper."

   • 2010, E.J. Fleming, Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol, page 155:

     A Motion Picture Classic writer who witnessed the Reids at the Sunset Inn wrote, “Wally is some stepper. Let me tell you the boy can dance."

   • 2012, Reginald Bakeley, Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop, page 104:

     Should there be a fey fiddler secreted among the musicians, or a seelie stepper on the dance floor, then the final tune of the evening could end with you dancing off with them, never to return.

   • 2014, Candace McCarthy, Rapture's Betrayal:

     Shall I call your vader then? He's a most accomplished stepper. He can show you how to dance.

   • 2015, J Washburn, Line Rider: An Arizona Ranger's True Story of Indians:

     He was a fancy stepper, and no doubt he figured that a good jig dance would improve his chances with Sis Hartnett.

3. (more specifically) A dancer in a step show.
   • 2001, New York Times Staff, The New York Times Dance Reviews 2000, page 372:

     Before he entered high school, he was a "stepper,” a practitioner of a local Philadelphia dance form derived from tapping.

   • 2010, Glenn Hinson, William Ferris, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, page 230:

     Just as the early circular routines of fraternity and sorority steppers suggest the influence of patting juba, so too may they reflect another early African American dance form, the “ring shout.”

   • 2012, Tamara L. Brown, Gregory S. Parks, Clarenda M. Phillips, African American Fraternities and Sororities:

     Although research on this subject is somewhat inconclusive, there are several instances in which the African origins of the canes used by steppers, dancers, and Brazilian practitioners of the martial art form Maculele (which is also a dance) are documented.

4. A kind of electric motor that advances in steps rather than smoothly.
5. A device used in the manufacture of microcircuits to apply a photolithographic image repeatedly, at regular intervals (by imaging, moving a step and repeating).
6. A type of exercise machine.
   • 2016, Vidyangi, Vertical Living:

     I am working out on the stepper, but I feel like dancing instead.

7. Anything that moves or advances in steps.
   • 2013, Matthew David, HTML5: Designing Rich Internet Applications, page 58:

     The Age field is a numeric stepper tool that allows you to scroll through a specific range of numbers.

8. (colloquial, especially in the plural) A shoe, especially a fashionable or attractive shoe, or one used for step-dancing.
   • 2005, Michele McKnight Baker, Sandpaper Sisters, FaithWalk Publishing, →ISBN, page 33:

     "And I would dress smack daddy down." Tawanda throws her head back, laughing. "The other girls was all lacy-like, with high heels; I had steppers, low heels like men's spectator shoes, and pointy toes. I got the foot for it and I got the height; I would put on the suit, the pantsuit, go out there with my megaphone, and step—I would STEP!" She hops to her feet and does a step or two.

   • 2020, Raven Simmons, The Story of Me: Part 1 Caterpillar Phase, Part 2 Cocoon Phase, Christian Faith Publishing, Inc., →ISBN:

     “ […] what are you wearing tonight?” “Well, I went to the mall and found the most amazing boots ever!” “Oh God, you and these boots. Ariel, you could open up a shoe store as many shoes as you have.” “Shut up and look at my new steppers.”

9. (UK, obsolete, slang, historical) A prison treadmill.
   • 1883, George Atkins Brine, The King of the Beggars, page 164:

     On the treadmill we were shut up in little boxes, almost pitch dark, and the handrail to catch hold of when treading the mill was so high […] I refused point blank, one morning, to go on the stepper on plea of illness, […]

Derived terms

• 13th stepper
• goose-stepper
• high-stepper
• light stepper
• twelve-stepper

 

Anagrams

• Teppers

Danish

Noun

stepper c

1. indefinite plural of steppe

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

stepper m

1. indefinite plural of steppe

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

stepper f

1. indefinite plural of steppe