escalator

Meanings

1. 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. 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.

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.

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