stairway
(ˈstɛəweɪ)
[f. stair n. + way n.]
a. A way up a flight of stairs, a staircase.
| 1767 T. Hutchinson Hist. Mass. (1795) II. iv. 387 Officers had planted themselves at the head of the stair-way with loaded carbines. 1847 Prescott Peru iv. v. (1850) II. 339 Running down to the first landing on the stairway. 1872 M. Collins P'cess Clarice II. 92 He walked up the grim stairway of the hotel. 1892 Boyle County of Durham 261 They were reached by a stairway from the triforium. 1906 Marj. Bowen Viper of Milan xx, It [the door] opened immediately on a black marble stairway. |
b. transf. spec. in Geomorphol., a series of abrupt changes of level in the floor of a glaciated valley.
| c 1820 S. Rogers Italy, Jovasse (1838) 23 His ancient carbine from his shoulder slung, His axe to hew a stair-way in the ice. 1894 Westm. Gaz. 1 Jan. 2/1 Here the old Duke of Bridgewater's canal makes junction with the Ship Canal by two long stairways of locks. 1904 Jrnl. Geol. XII. 570 The tread of the steps in the long stairway..greatly lengthened in down-canyon order. 1957 J. K. Charlesworth Quaternary Era I. xiii. 297 Cirques in almost all glaciated regions frequently occur in tiers, the ‘tandom cirque’ or ‘cirque stairway’.., each step often with its rock-basin and tarn. 1974 [see riser 7 b]. |
c. fig.
| 1879 E. Arnold Lt. Asia viii. (1881) 229 Make golden stairways of your weakness. 1886 C. A. Briggs Messianic Proph. i. 26 The prophets as an order of..teachers constitute a grand stairway. 1909 Edin. Rev. July 40 Thus the soul ranges up and down the stairway of existence. |