steeple
Americannoun
-
steeples
plural
-
an ornamental construction, usually ending in a spire, erected on a roof or tower of a church, public building, etc.
-
a tower terminating in such a construction.
-
(loosely) a spire.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a tall ornamental tower that forms the superstructure of a church, temple, etc
-
such a tower with the spire above it
-
any spire or pointed structure
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of steeple
before 1000; Middle English stepel steeple, tower, Old English stēpel tower. See steep 1, -le
Explanation
A steeple is a very tall tower that gets smaller and smaller as it goes up. Many churches have steeples. Steeples are really tall so people can find the church from anywhere in town. Steeples have been around since the Middle Ages. The word itself comes from Middle English for “high tower.” A steeple on top of a church or temple makes it stand out in a crowd, and it also points right up to heaven. There’s a steeple on almost every church, but if you want to see a really big one, check out the one on the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Vocabulary lists containing steeple
"The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The simple contour of a chapel, its steeple slightly off-center, stands out from the wall about six inches deep.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
A motorized unit arriving to plant a flag on a church steeple and take a photo—then bolting immediately.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
We park with a view of the village church steeple backed by steely limestone peaks of the Pyrenees and lunch at a bar some feet away.
From Salon ● Nov. 8, 2025
The earthquake brought down the church steeple and part of the roof.
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2025
As had been feared, the steeple of St. Paul’s had ignited and was sending a shower of sparks across the river.
From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy
The cultivated landscape extends into the distance, where tiny steeples and other buildings offer signs of city life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
The chapel, whose unusual design includes three spires, two steeples, a belfry and separate sanctuaries for Catholics and Protestants, has been locked and left to decay since being damaged in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026
About 180 sites have sustained structural damage requiring at least partial reconstruction, including churches with collapsed steeples or statues missing pieces.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2022
But Bill 21, signed into law last week, is ruffling feathers because its provisions also could keep flagpoles, church steeples, swimming pools and even luaus in the dark.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 3, 2022
We played them in the evenings as the sun set over the steeples of Boston, casting broad, brazen rectangles of light across the fraying rugs.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
That, at least, felt like home for the hundreds of thousands of Protestant middle Americans who migrated to L.A. and, in the land of Spanish missions, built themselves white clapboard New England-style steepled churches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 23, 2023
The 1853 town was built in the same Maine style as the company town’s sawmill founders and workers had grown up with — steepled churches, clapboard homes with bright white trim and picket fences.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2023
About 100 people, mostly White, gathered on the grassy lawn of the Grayson County courthouse, the nondescript beige block that in 1936 replaced the steepled stone beauty that had burned.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 3, 2021
Perhaps it is just a single stand of trees, straight-trunked with steepled boughs, prickly needles and oblong cones, seen but unnoticed, hidden in plain sight.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2021
The Grand Elder steepled his fingers together and pressed them to his bulbous lips.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
Like the rest of the world, the Philippines is having to pay a lot more for energy imports, but it is the steepling prices of staple foodstuffs that has become most hard to stomach.
From Reuters ● Feb. 15, 2023
A steepling catch off Klaasen's leading edge was well taken by Mohammad Wasim off Shaheen, who claimed 3-14 overall, and Stubbs pulled Naseem Shah's slower bouncer to deep square-leg.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2022
Guardiola sat on an icebox in the technical area, his fingers steepling against his forehead, in horrified awe, as if trying to impose some reason on it all.
From New York Times ● Apr. 26, 2022
De Beer’s trusty right boot also set up one of South Africa’s two tries as a steepling up-and-under bounced kindly into the grasp of winger Pieter Roussow, who flopped over the line.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 1, 2019
It was clicking its front legs together, steepling them like hands grown impatient from waiting.
From "Aru Shah and the End of Time" by Roshani Chokshi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
