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''steeple'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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Primary

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''steeple'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260213203653-00-⌔

steeple - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

steeple (plural steeples)

  • A tall tower, often on a church, normally topped with a spire.
    • ✤ Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the steeple is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of mind, the pride and wonder of the village—the great clock of the borough of Vondervotteimittiss.1
    • ✤ So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had sounded from the steeples.2
  • A spire.
  • (historical) A high headdress of the 14th century.

Verb

steeple (third-person singular simple present steeples, present participle steepling, simple past and past participle steepled)

  • (transitive) To form something into the shape of a steeple.
    • ✤ He steepled his fingers as he considered the question.
    • ✤ Mr. Ziegler is now angled forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled just under his nose.3
    • ✤ Mr Hatfield steepled his fingers and gazed at her fixedly and took a long contemplative breath.4

Etymology

From Middle English stepel, from Old English stīpel, stȳpel, stīepel (“tower, steeple”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡staupil, from Proto-Germanic ﹡staupilaz (“that which is steep, tower, steeple”), equivalent to steep +‎ -le. Cognate with Old Norse stǫpull (“tower, steeple”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈsti(ː)pəl/, [ˈsti(ː)pɫ̩]
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -iːpəl

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, The Devil in the Belfry ‎: ↩

  2. 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “Little Dorrit’s Party”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, 1st book (Poverty), pages 126–127: ↩

  3. 2005, David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, New York: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 341: ↩

  4. 1992, James Herriot, Every Living Thing, →ISBN: ↩

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Secondary

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