steppe

[ step ]
See synonyms for steppe on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. an extensive plain, especially one without trees.

  2. The Steppes,

    • Also called Eurasian Steppe, Great Steppe . the vast grasslands stretching from Asia to Eastern Europe, bounded on the north by European and Asian Russia and Siberia.

Origin of steppe

1
First recorded in 1665–75; from Russian step' or Ukrainian step; further origin uncertain

Words that may be confused with steppe

Words Nearby steppe

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use steppe in a sentence

  • Mentally, the man of the steppe and the desert is to-day little advanced beyond his predecessors of thousands of years ago.

    Man And His Ancestor | Charles Morris
  • He dreamed he was on a bare steppe, strewn with big stones, under a lowering sky.

  • A man traveling alone across the steppe, may be easily guessed to be a courier of the Czar.

    Michael Strogoff | Jules Verne
  • Half an hour after the berlin was left far behind, looking only a speck on the horizon of the steppe.

    Michael Strogoff | Jules Verne
  • She knows the steppe, and would have no fear in just taking her staff and going down the banks of the Irtych.

    Michael Strogoff | Jules Verne

British Dictionary definitions for steppe

steppe

/ (stɛp) /


noun
  1. (often plural) an extensive grassy plain usually without trees: Compare prairie, pampas

Origin of steppe

1
C17: from Old Russian step lowland

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for steppe

steppe

[ stĕp ]


  1. A vast, semiarid grassland, as found in southeast Europe, Siberia, and central North America.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.