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steppe

American  
[step] / stɛp /

noun

  1. an extensive plain, especially one without trees.

  2. The Steppes,

    1. Also called Great Steppe.  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 British  
/ stɛp /

noun

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
steppe Scientific  
/ stĕp /

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

Etymology

Origin of steppe

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

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.

I was two days into the Gobi March, a brutal 155-mile ultramarathon through the steppes, sand dunes and rock valleys of Central Mongolia.

From The Wall Street Journal

Four years ago, almost to the day, I was at the main railway station in Kyiv, watching a scene straight out of Europe's dark past play out in a bitter wind off the Ukrainian steppe.

From BBC

They also compared the bone of modern elephants and steppe mammoths to determine which animal it came from.

From BBC

They paired them with horn-shaped hats designed to protect against enemy arrows and survive the biting cold of the Mongolian steppes—and a trip to Northern Italy.

From The Wall Street Journal

While sand and the steppe have always been part of life in Central Asia, scientists warn climate change and other human activities are accelerating desertification and the degradation of the land.

From Barron's

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.