Primary
''steppe'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260202202216-00-⌔
steppe - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
steppe (countable and uncountable, plural steppes)
- The grasslands of Eastern Europe and Asia. [from 1671]
- ✤ Coordinate terms: pampas (South America), plain (North America), prairie (North America), savanna (North Africa), veld (South Africa)
- ✤ Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments […]1
- ✤ Enkidu was the hairy man of the wild steppes, and Gilgamesh was the hero of civilization; but now the contrast is between Gilgamesh, the king, the man of political power, the heroic man of action, the extrovert, and Utnapishtim, the man of religious authority, the introvert, the sage.2
- A vast, cold, dry, grassy plain.
- ✤ Grasslands: The Steppe biome is a dry, cold, grassland that is found in all of the continents except Australia and Antarctica. It is mostly found in the USA, Mongolia, Siberia, Tibet and China. There isn’t much humidity in the air because Steppe is located away from the ocean and close to mountain barriers.3
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).
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) IPA: /stɛp/
- Audio (US): 🔊
- Rhymes: -ɛp
- Homophone: step
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Preliminary”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 3: ↩
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 187: ↩
2000, Mary Elizabeth v. N., “Steppe”, in Blue Planet Biomes , West Tisbury Elementary School: ↩
Secondary
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