steppe

noun
/stɛp/UK

Etymology

From German Steppe or French steppe, in turn from Russian степь (stepʹ, “flat grassy plain”) or Ukrainian степ (step). There is no generally accepted earlier etymology, but there is a speculative Old East Slavic reconstruction *сътепь (sŭtepĭ, “trampled place, flat, bare”), related to топот (topot), топтать (toptatĭ).

  1. derived from степ
  2. derived from степь
  3. derived from steppe
  4. derived from Steppe

Definitions

  1. The grasslands of Eastern Europe and Asia.

    • Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments […]
  2. A vast, cold, dry, grassy plain.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at steppe. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01steppe02grasslands03grassland04grasslike05grass06grain07seeds08seed09sown

A definitional loop anchored at steppe. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at steppe

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA