understep
A gait in which the hind feet touch the ground behind the point where the front feet touch the ground.
Adjective
- Underneath a step.
- Escalator modernization including handrail speed monitors, Safe-T- Brakes, emergency stop relocation, understep lighting, reconditioning of steps and related improvements. - 2000, FY 2000 Budget Request of the District...
Origin
From under- + step.
Noun
- A gait in which the hind feet touch the ground behind the point where the front feet touch the ground.
- The resulting trail is an understep walk—the hind tracks in each pair register behind the front tracks. - 2010, Louis Liebenberg, Adriaan Louw, Mark Elbroch, Practical Tracking: A Guide to Following Footprints and...
- A few animals, such as bison, commonly use an understep walk, while several species, including black bears, cougars and pronghorn regularly use an overstep walk. - 2012, Jonathan Poppele, Animal Tracks: Midwest Edition,...
- Therefore, an understep (where the hind track lies behind the front track) is probably a slower gait than a direct-registering walk where the hind lies on top of the front, and both are probably slower than an overstep...
- A step that acts as a base to hold something.
- Written in minuscule script and placed on the shaded understep at the feet of the Virgin, the pious dedication was appropriate for the subject and its intended location. - 2009, Gretchen A. Hirschauer, Catherine A....
- The underside of a step.
- In the back room and understeps, recessed lights are used. - 1984, Edie Lee Cohen, Sherman R. Emery, Dining by design, page 118:
- He hit his head on an understep and slammed back down again, gasping with pain. - 1984, Marc Lovell, How green was my apple, →ISBN, page 74:
- Jay had discovered the understeps before they had even gotten to middle school. - 2016, Amy Ignatow, The Mighty Odds, →ISBN:
- A movement in which one understeps.
- Understeps were easy to detect, as the paw missed the rung entirely and the rat had to catch itself so it didn't stumble. - 2012, Adam Wolfberg, Fragile Beginnings: Discoveries and Triumphs in the Newborn ICU, →ISBN:
Forms
Verb
- Not to go as far as a boundary or limit.
- The Questers were many, and fortunately the Answerer did not too often overstep or understep the mark. - 1897, Boot and Shoe Recorder - Volume 30, page 28:
- For the moment I experience the conflict as suffering and bear it, I no longer really move within problematic actuality but understep it. - 1963, G. A. Rauche, The philosophy of actuality, page 89:
- They will understep and overstep the bounds of propriety, and even of legality. - 1967, The Phi Delta Kappan - Volume 49, Issues 1-10, page 282:
- To take a step that is not far enough forward.
- As an instance of this inability to control the muscles well, may be cited the almost constant tendency to understep or overstep especially with the fore legs. - 1907, University of Nebraska (Lincoln campus)....
- If a sense of feeling gave him some knowledge of the width of the steps the fact that the third step was ⅝ of an inch wider could not cause him to overstep, but if it had any effect it would tend to cause him to...
- Cerebellar dysfunction is characterized by truncal ataxia, a broad-based stance, dysmetria in which the limbs either overstep (hypermetria) or understep (hypometria), and tremor that is most pronounced when the animal...
- To have a gait in which the hind foot touches the ground behind the point where the front foot touches the ground.
- As a general rule, a stag treads more cleanly than a hind, his stride is longer, the slot itself being rounder and less elongated ; while a hind or young stag understeps frequently, leaving in consequence a more or less...