between-step

English

Alternative forms

• between step

Etymology

From between +‎ step.

Noun

between-step (plural between-steps)

1. An intermediate or intermediary step, stage, process, or phase.
   • 1949, Marie Bonaparte (Princess), The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe:

     Clearly, the bottle-arms of this "Angel" represent, at one and the same time, the mother's breasts and the father's penis — though we should not forget the between-step of the concept of the mother's penis, [...]

   • 1998, Ronald M. Rapee, Overcoming Shyness and Social Phobia:

     If you find that your next situation on the stepladder is very frightening, then it is obviously too big a step and you should try to think of ways to make it a little easier, as a between step.

   • 2003, Edward Prime-Stevenson, James J. Gifford, Imre: A Memorandum:

     I do not know, nor do I care to know, whether they are a sex by themselves, a justified, because helpless, play of Nature; or even a kind of logically essential link, a between-step, as you seem to have persuaded yourself.

Adjective

between-step (not comparable)

1. (attributive) Intermediate; intermediary; in-process; interim.
   • 1963, Measurement and Control: Interpretative Reports for Management - Volume 2 - Page 10:

     Furthermore, in conjunction with various forms of pneumatic interlocking, the whole system fails safe, particularly in not holding a between-step condition.

   • 1988, Daniel Druckman, John A. Swets, Enhancing Human Performance:

     In this appendix, a within-step source of error refers to an error of either type that occurs as a result of the operations performed inside any of the boxes shown in Figure E-1; a between-step source of error refers to either type of error that occurs ...

   • 1992, T. Royama, Analytical Population Dynamics:

     One assumption implicit in the logistic process in discrete time is that the resource is invariant between time steps. In section 4.4, I relax this assumption, allowing for a between-step variation in the resource due to exploitation by the animals [...]

Anagrams

• step between