lockstep
[lok-step]
- a way of marching in very close file, in which the leg of each person moves with and closely behind the corresponding leg of the person ahead.
- a rigidly inflexible pattern or process.
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- rigidly inflexible: a lockstep educational curriculum.
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Origin of lockstep
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for lockstep
Contemporary Examples
Yet they cannot reasonably believe that the rest of America will march in lockstep with them.
And demand (and sales) tends to rise in lockstep with the economy.
When a community is in the grips of a siege mentality, that sort of lockstep friendship may seem appealing.
Canadian PM Stephen Harper Displays Lockstep Friendship With Israel at JNF DinnerMira Sucharov
December 4, 2013
What we were again thinking was here again are two characters who have for the most part been in lockstep for two years.
And as waves, they will produce characteristic interference patterns caused by waves arriving out of step or in lockstep.
Historical Examples
It is a rare child who is able to break this lockstep by extra promotions.
The Measurement of IntelligenceLewis Madison Terman
Breakfast is over; the lines form in lockstep, and march to the shops.
Prison Memoirs of an AnarchistAlexander Berkman
If Julius Caysar was alive to-day he'd be doin' a lockstep down in Joliet.
Mr. Dooley SaysFinley Dunne
Often enough it is the choice of the gun on the shoulder, or, by and by, the stripes on the back in the lockstep gang.
The Battle with the SlumJacob A. Riis.
I've thought iv thim whin th' lockstep was goin' in to dinner, an' prayed f'r th' day whin I might see ye again.
Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His CountrymenFinley Peter Dunne
lockstep
- a method of marching in step such that the men follow one another as closely as possible
- mainly US and Canadian a standard procedure that is closely, often mindlessly, followed
- in lockstep with progressing at exactly the same speed and in the same direction as other people or things, esp as a matter of course rather than by choice
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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