stepsister
Americannoun
-
stepsisters
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stepsister
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at step-, sister
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:
Dealing with my mother and my stepsister is exhausting and causes me a lot of anxiety.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 13, 2026
Hahn: It’s interesting, Mark, because I’ve always felt kind of like basically just invited to the party, so I always have felt like the messy stepsister on the outside looking in.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2025
What I found in this fairy tale is that the stepsister is the most relatable character and has been for thousands of years.
From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025
Baena's surviving family includes his mother Barbara Stern and stepfather Roger Stern; father Scott and stepmother Michele Baena; brother Brad Baena; stepsister Bianca Gabay and stepbrother Jed Fluxman.
From BBC ● Jan. 7, 2025
But Ash detected an undercurrent of anxiety in her stepsister, and she could not help it — she began to feel sorry for her.
From "Ash" by Malinda Lo
After decades of feeling like the forgotten stepsisters of marketers, some CCOs are even moving up and into bigger roles that companies have long filled with finance and operations executives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
Despite the family's efforts to protect them, her younger stepsisters found out that their father and mother were trapped under the rubble from other children at school.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2025
She also defends his humanity to Louis’s nasty daughters, who make the evil stepsisters in Disney’s “Cinderella” seem understated.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
It can be an ordeal, watching directors force Shakespearean rethinks into contemporary settings, the way Cinderella’s stepsisters try to cram their feet into an ill-fitting slipper.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2022
Ash glanced at her stepsisters, but they seemed as surprised as she was.
From "Ash" by Malinda Lo
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.
