staircase

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a way of access, upward and downward, consisting of a set of steps

   We'll have to be careful with the sofa when we are going down the staircase.

2. 2
   noun

   A flight of stairs; a stairway.

   I was on the staircase by the bell / Blinded by the black magician's spell.

3. 3
   noun

   A connected set of flights of stairs; a stairwell.

   Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

4. 4
   verb

   To modify (a signal, a graph, etc.) to reduce a smooth curve to a series of discrete steps.

   This leads to much smoother reconstructions in regions of moderate gradient and thus prevents staircasing.

From stair + case.

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