different between colour vs steep

English

Alternative forms

• color (American spelling)

Pronunciation

Homophone: culler

Noun

colour (countable and uncountable, plural colours) (British spelling, Canadian spelling)

1. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Britain standard spelling of color.

Adjective

colour (not comparable)

1. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Britain standard spelling of color.

Related terms

• colourimeter

Verb

colour (third-person singular simple present colours, present participle colouring, simple past and past participle coloured)

1. Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Britain standard spelling of color.

Derived terms

Anagrams

• courol, ur-cool

Middle English

Alternative forms

• colur, color, culur, coler, coloure, kolour

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman colur, from Latin color.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku?lu?r/, /?kulur/

Noun

colour (plural colours or coloures)

1. colour, hue, shade
2. pigment, dye (substance for colouring)
3. method (literary or rhetorical)
4. justification, explanation (often feigned)

Descendants

• English: color, colour
• Scots: colour

References

• “c?l?ur, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.

See also

Old French

Noun

colour f (oblique plural colours, nominative singular colour, nominative plural colours)

1. (Anglo-Norman) Alternative form of color

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: st?p, IPA^(key): /sti?p/
• Rhymes: -i?p

Etymology 1

From Middle English steep, from Old English st?ap (“high”), from Proto-Germanic *staupaz. Compare Old Frisian st?p, Dutch stoop (“grand; proud”), Middle High German stouf (“towering cliff, precipice”), Middle High German stief (“steep”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewb- (“to push, stick”). The Proto-Indo-European root (and related) has many and varied descendants, including English stub; compare also Scots stap (“to strike, to forcibly insert”).

The sense of “sharp slope” is attested circa 1200; the sense “expensive” is attested US 1856.

Adjective

steep (comparative steeper, superlative steepest)

1. Of a near-vertical gradient; of a slope, surface, curve, etc. that proceeds upward at an angle near vertical.

2. (informal) expensive

3. (obsolete) Difficult to access; not easy reached; lofty; elevated; high.
   • 1596, George Chapman, De Guiana, carmen Epicum

     Her ears and thoughts in steep amaze erected

4. (of the rake of a ship's mast, or a car's windshield) resulting in a mast or windshield angle that strongly diverges from the perpendicular

Derived terms

• steepen

Synonyms

• (dialectal) brant

Translations

Noun

steep (plural steeps)

1. The steep side of a mountain etc.; a slope or acclivity.
   • 1833, Banjamin Disraeli, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy

     It ended precipitously in a dark and narrow ravine, formed on the other side by an opposite mountain, the lofty steep of which was crested by a city gently rising on a gradual slope

Etymology 2

From Middle English stepen, from Old Norse steypa (“to make stoop, cast down, pour out, cast (metal)”), from Proto-Germanic *staupijan? (“to tumble, make tumble, plunge”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewb- (“to push, hit”). Cognate with Danish støbe (“cast (metal)”), Norwegian støpe, støype, Swedish stöpa (“to found, cast (metal)”), Old English st?pian (“to stoop, bend the back, slope”). Doublet of stoop.

Verb

steep (third-person singular simple present steeps, present participle steeping, simple past and past participle steeped)

1. (transitive, middle) To soak or wet thoroughly.
   • 1820, William Wordsworth, Composed at Cora Linn, in sight of Wallace's Tower

     In refreshing dews to steep / The little, trembling flowers.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To imbue with something; to be deeply immersed in.
   • 1871, John Earle, The Philology of the English Tongue

   The learned of the nation were steeped in Latin.

   • 1989, Black 47, Big Fellah:

     We fought against each other, two brothers steeped in blood / But I never doubted that your heart was broken in the flood / And though we had to shoot you down in golden Béal na mBláth / I always knew that Ireland lost her greatest son of all.

Derived terms

• insteep

Translations

Noun

steep (countable and uncountable, plural steeps)

1. A liquid used in a steeping process

   Corn steep has many industrial uses.

2. A rennet bag.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Estep, Tepes, speet, teeps, tepes