Literary notes about Step (AI summary)
The word "step" in literature functions as both a literal indicator of movement and a metaphor for progress, decision, or regression. It can depict physical actions—a measured, hesitant pace ([1], [2]) or an assured, brisk movement ([3], [4])—while also representing significant moments in personal or intellectual journeys, such as the first move toward freedom ([5]), a miscalculated decision ([6]), or a gradual process of reasoning and growth ([7], [8]). Authors use it to evoke transitions, whether in the spatial progression of a narrative ([9], [10]) or in the unfolding of a character’s inner evolution and the careful balancing of choice and consequence ([11], [12], [13]).
- She is breathless and moves with a lagging step.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - He took a wild step forward and then stopped.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - Yet this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each step; his gloves were spotless.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Having kissed the old lady, Christie swept her work away, and sat down to write the letter which was the first step toward freedom.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott - I little realised at the time what a tremendously false step mine had been!
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore - By it the mind should ascend step by step from particular facts and instances to general laws and abstract principles.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - That is the first step, and as the Chinese sage Lao-tze has said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step."
— from The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer - He retired with bowed head, traversed the antechamber, and slowly descended the stairs, as though hesitating at every step.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The great mountain having at last appeared on our horizon, we were to have its company for nearly every step of the rest of the journey.
— from A Diplomat in Japan by Ernest Mason Satow - But this surely is a step or progress of the mind, which wants to be explained.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume - Much as I wished William to be free, the step he had taken made me sad and anxious.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs - Taken as such a step or stage, its existence is proof of its complete rationality, for it is an integral element in the total, which is Reason.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
