different between course vs step

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kôs, IPA^(key): /k??s/
• (General American) enPR: kôrs, IPA^(key): /k???s/, /k??s/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: k?rs, IPA^(key): /ko(?)?s/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /ko?s/
• (Tasmania) IPA^(key): /k??s/
• Homophone: coarse; curse (Tasmania)
• Rhymes: -??(?)s, -??(?)s (Tasmania)

Etymology 1

From Middle English cours, from Old French cours, from Latin cursus (“course of a race”), from curr? (“run”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *?ers- (“to run”). Doublet of cursus.

Noun

course (plural courses)

1. A sequence of events.
   1. A normal or customary sequence.
   2. A programme, a chosen manner of proceeding.
   3. Any ordered process or sequence of steps.
   4. A learning programme, whether a single class or (Britain) a major area of study.
      • 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond

        During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant […]

      • 1992 August 21, Edwina Currie, Diary:

        Her course will be ‘Communication Studies with Theatre Studies’: God, how tedious, how pointless.
   5. (especially in medicine) A treatment plan.
      • 1932, Agatha Christie, The Thirteen Problems

        Miss Clark, alarmed at her increasing stoutness, was doing a course of what is popularly known as banting.

   6. A stage of a meal.

   7. The succession of one to another in office or duty; order; turn.

      • He appointed […] the courses of the priests.

2. A path that something or someone moves along.
   1. The itinerary of a race.

   2. A racecourse.
   3. The path taken by a flow of water; a watercourse.
   4. (sports) The trajectory of a ball, frisbee etc.
   5. (golf) A golf course.
   6. (nautical) The direction of movement of a vessel at any given moment.

   7. (navigation) The intended passage of voyage, such as a boat, ship, airplane, spaceship, etc.

3. (nautical) The lowest square sail in a fully rigged mast, often named according to the mast.

4. (in the plural, courses, obsolete, euphemistic) Menses.
5. A row or file of objects.
   1. (masonry) A row of bricks or blocks.

   2. (roofing) A row of material that forms the roofing, waterproofing or flashing system.
   3. (textiles) In weft knitting, a single row of loops connecting the loops of the preceding and following rows.
6. (music) One or more strings on some musical instruments (such as the guitar, lute or vihuela): if multiple, then closely spaced, tuned in unison or octaves and intended to played together.

Hyponyms

• bird course
• crash course
• due course
• massive open online course (MOOC)

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

course (third-person singular simple present courses, present participle coursing, simple past and past participle coursed)

1. To run or flow (especially of liquids and more particularly blood).

   The oil coursed through the engine.

   Blood pumped around the human body courses throughout all its veins and arteries.

   • 2013, Martina Hyde, "Is the pope Catholic?", The Guardian, 20 September 2013[1]

     He is a South American, so perhaps revolutionary spirit courses through Francis's veins. But what, pray, does the Catholic church want with doubt?

2. (transitive) To run through or over.
3. (transitive) To pursue by tracking or estimating the course taken by one's prey; to follow or chase after.
4. (transitive) To cause to chase after or pursue game.

   to course greyhounds after deer

Translations

Etymology 2

Clipping of of course

Adverb

course (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) Alternative form of of course

Anagrams

• Couser, Crouse, Crusoe, cerous, coures, crouse, source

French

Etymology

From Old French cours, from Latin cursus (“course of a race”), from curr? (“run”), with influence of Italian corsa.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku?s/

Noun

course f (plural courses)

1. run, running
2. race
3. errand

Usage notes

• course is a false friend, it does not mean "course". To translate the English word course to French, use cours.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Romanian: curs?

Further reading

• “course” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• coeurs, cœurs
• coures
• écrous
• source

Norman

Etymology

From Old French cours, from Latin cursus (“course of a race”), from curr? (“run”).

Noun

course f (plural courses)

1. (Jersey) course

English

Etymology

From Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan (“to step, go, proceed, advance”), stepe (“step”), from Proto-Germanic *stapjan? (“to step”), *stapiz (“step”), from Proto-Indo-European *stab- (“to support, stomp, curse, be amazed”). Cognate with West Frisian stappe (“to step”), North Frisian stape (“to walk, trudge”), Dutch stappen (“to step, walk”), Walloon steper (“to walk away, leave”), German stapfen (“to trudge, stomp, plod”) and further to Slavic Polish st?pa? (“to stomp, stamp, step, tread”), Russian ??????? (stupat?) and Polish stopie? (“step, stair, rung, degree”), Russian ??????? (stepen?). Related to stamp, stomp.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /st?p/
• Hyphenation: step
• Rhymes: -?p
• Homophone: steppe

Noun

step (plural steps)

1. 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.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:step.
2. 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.
   • 1624, Sir Henry Wotton, The Elements Of Architecture

     The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:step.
3. A distinct part of a process; stage; phase.

4. A running board where passengers step to get on and off the bus.

5. The space passed over by one movement of the foot in walking or running.

   • 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.

6. A small space or distance.

7. A print of the foot; a footstep; a footprint; track.
8. A gait; manner of walking.
   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,

     Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:step.
9. Proceeding; measure; action; act.
   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Preface to his collection of poems

     The reputation of a man depends on the first steps he makes in the world.

   • c. 1792, William Cowper, The Needless Alarm

     Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.

   • 1879, George Washington Cable, Old Creole Days

     I have lately taken steps […] to relieve the old gentleman's distresses.

   • 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     Moon has also requested that government officials take additional steps to help fight pollution, his spokesman said.

10. (in the plural) A walk; passage.

    • Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree.

11. (in the plural) A portable framework of stairs, much used indoors in reaching to a high position.
12. (nautical) A framing in wood or iron which is intended to receive an upright shaft; specifically, a block of wood, or a solid platform upon the keelson, supporting the heel of the mast.
13. (machines) 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.
14. (machines) A bearing in which the lower extremity of a spindle or a vertical shaft revolves.
15. (music) 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.

16. (kinematics) A change of position effected by a motion of translation.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of William Kingdon Clifford to this entry?)

17. (programming) A constant difference between consecutive values in a series.

18. (slang) A stepsibling.

Synonyms

• stride

Hyponyms

• back step, half step, etc. see under back, half, etc.
• cyclic step

Derived terms

• cross-step (a step in which one foot is crossed over another; the action of taking such a step or steps)
• step-by-step
• step-free
• stepmeal
• stepwise

Related terms

Translations

Verb

step (third-person singular simple present steps, present participle stepping, simple past stepped or (dated) stept or (obsolete) stope, past participle stepped or (dated) stept or (obsolete) stopen)

1. (intransitive) 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.
2. (intransitive) To walk; to go on foot; especially, to walk a little distance.

3. (intransitive) To walk slowly, gravely, or resolutely.

   • Home from his Morning-Task , the Swain retreats, His flock before him stepping to the fold.

4. (intransitive, figuratively) To move mentally; to go in imagination.
5. (transitive) To set, as the foot.
   • 2010, Charles E. Miller, Winds of Mercy: 40 Short Stories (page 219)

     One of the women, Elsie, stepped her foot inside to help the woman.

6. (transitive, nautical) To fix the foot of (a mast) in its step; to erect.
   • 1898, Joseph Conrad, Youth

     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

Translations

See also

• step-

Further reading

• step in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• step at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• EPTs, ESTP, PETs, Pest, Sept, Sept., TPEs, Teps, pest, pets, sept, sept-, spet

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?p/

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

step f

1. steppe

Declension

Etymology 2

From English step

Noun

step m inanimate

1. tap dance

Declension

Further reading

• step in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• step in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English step (“footrest on a bicycle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?p/
• Hyphenation: step
• Rhymes: -?p

Noun

step f (plural steps, diminutive stepje n)

1. kick scooter

   Synonyms: autoped, trottinette

2. (dated) A mounting bracket on a bicycle.

Derived terms

• steppen

Indonesian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s(?)t?p/
• Hyphenation: stèp

Etymology 1

From English step, from Middle English steppen, from Old English steppan (“to step, go, proceed, advance”), stepe (“step”), from Proto-Germanic *stapjan? (“to step”), *stapiz (“step”), from Proto-Indo-European *stab- (“to support, stomp, curse, be amazed”).

Noun

stèp (first-person possessive stepku, second-person possessive stepmu, third-person possessive stepnya)

1. step; pace, gait.

Etymology 2

From Dutch stuip (“convulsion”), from Middle Dutch st?pe, stupen, stuypen (“convulsion”, literally “to duck, to bend down”), from Old English stupian (“to stoop, bend over”) (compare to English stoop (“to bend”)), from Old Norse stúpa, from Proto-Germanic *st?p?n?, *st?pijan? (“to stand out”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewb- (“to push, butt, knock”).

Noun

stèp (first-person possessive stepku, second-person possessive stepmu, third-person possessive stepnya)

1. (colloquial, medicine) convulsion.

   Synonym: setip

   Synonyms: sawan, kejang

Further reading

• “step” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) Daring, Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2016.

Middle English

Noun

step

1. Alternative form of steppe

Polish

Etymology

From Ukrainian ???? (step).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?p/

Noun

step m inan

1. (often in the plural) steppe

Declension

Further reading

• step in Wielki s?ownik j?zyka polskiego, Instytut J?zyka Polskiego PAN
• step in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish

Etymology

From English step.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?step/, [?st?ep]

• IPA^(key): /es?tep/, [es?t?ep]

Noun

step m (uncountable)

1. step training