steppe

[ step ]

noun

1. an extensive plain, especially one without trees.
2. The Steppes,
   1. Also called Eurasian Steppe,. the vast grasslands stretching from Asia to Eastern Europe, bounded on the north by European and Asian Russia and Siberia.
   2. Kirghiz Steppe.

steppe

/ stɛp /

noun

1. often plural an extensive grassy plain usually without trees Compare prairie pampas

steppe

/ stĕp /

1. A vast, semiarid grassland, as found in southeast Europe, Siberia, and central North America.

Word History and Origins

Origin of steppe¹

First recorded in 1665–75; from Russian step' or Ukrainian step; further origin uncertain

Word History and Origins

Origin of steppe¹

C17: from Old Russian step lowland

Example Sentences

The impacts of climate change are amplified across the mountains and steppes that snow leopards call home, where average temperatures are predicted to rise at a rate more than twice the global average.

From Outside Online

On and off for over 2,000 years, rulers based around the Yellow River built up strategic depth of their own by fighting Mongols, Turks, and other nomads on the steppes and pushing inland to the mountains of Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Tibet.

From Time

Their idea is that steppe will keep the ground frozen year-round.

From Science News For Students

Originally from the steppes of Europe and Asia, it had been brought to North America as forage for cattle, but scientists had a hunch it could also feed people.

From Washington Post

They ate the grass and pooped the nutrients back into the ground, closing the loop on the steppe’s carbon-nitrogen cycle.

From Popular-Science

Mentally, the man of the steppe and the desert is to-day little advanced beyond his predecessors of thousands of years ago.

From Project Gutenberg

He dreamed he was on a bare steppe, strewn with big stones, under a lowering sky.

From Project Gutenberg

A man traveling alone across the steppe, may be easily guessed to be a courier of the Czar.

From Project Gutenberg

Half an hour after the berlin was left far behind, looking only a speck on the horizon of the steppe.

From Project Gutenberg

She knows the steppe, and would have no fear in just taking her staff and going down the banks of the Irtych.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• grassland
• prairie
• savanna