Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To step up; move upward. Hynd Horn (Child's Ballads, IV. 26).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

up +‎ step

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Examples

  • A glance or two at the sheer thirty-foot wall of the upstep in the bed of the main cañon would convince the most astute of cowboys that not even a puma could go up that way.

    Bloom of Cactus Robert Ames Bennet 1912

  • In a PLoS-One paper, Steven H. Collins (D.partment of Biomechanical Engineering, D.lft University of Technology) and Arthur D. Kuo (D.partments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan) describe an ingenious new prosthetic foot that uses a microcontroller to guide a device that stores the energy of the downstep and releases it for the upstep, mimicking the natural functioning of unmodified human ankles.

    Boing Boing Cory Doctorow 2010

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