escalator

A2 Topic:People & Society

US /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tɚ/ UK /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tə/ See IPA manual

Freq #24418

Meanings

1

noun
A moving staircase that carries people up or down between floors.

We took the escalator up to the second floor of the shopping mall.
2

noun
A clause in a contract that allows wages or prices to rise or fall under certain conditions.

Their contract included an escalator that raised salaries with the cost of living.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a moving staircase that... moving staircasemoving stairway

2 noun · a clause in a contract that... escalator clause

Word family

Forms escalators

Derived forms downalatorescalefter

Related forms escalate

Appears in

Phrases (1)

See all

escalator clause
a contract provision that adjusts payments when specified conditions change

Noun + noun

Etymology

From the former trademark Escalator, created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, from Latin ē- (“from, out of”) + scala (“ladder”) + -tor, which forms nouns of agency; see the appendix. Broader usage may be influenced by its derivative escalate, by surface analysis, escalate + -or. For an alternative etymology, see the Online Etymology Dictionary.

ex- Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# escalator

**Type:** Word
**Level:** A2
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tə/
**Frequency rank:** 24418

## Meanings
1. A moving staircase that carries people up or down between floors.
2. A clause in a contract that allows wages or prices to rise or fall under certain conditions.

## Examples
- We took the escalator up to the second floor of the shopping mall.
- Their contract included an escalator that raised salaries with the cost of living.

## Derived Forms
- downalator
- escalefter

## Related Forms
- escalate

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: ex-

## Etymology
From the former trademark Escalator, created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, from Latin ē- (“from, out of”) + scala (“ladder”) + -tor, which forms nouns of agency; see the appendix. Broader usage may be influenced by its derivative escalate, by surface analysis, escalate + -or. For an alternative etymology, see the Online Etymology Dictionary.

## AI Etymology
Escalator comes from the former trademark Escalator, created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, from Latin ē- (“from, out of”) + scala (“ladder”) + -tor, which forms nouns of agency; see the appendix. Broader usage may be influenced by its derivative escalate, by surface analysis, escalate + -or. For an alternative etymology, see the Online Etymology Dictionary.

## Topics
- People & Society

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