## 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
- Space, Position & Direction

markdown

escalator

Meanings

Thesaurus

Common collocations

Etymology

Topics

External links

Keyboard Shortcuts

General

Send feedback