You searched for: “escalators
escalator (s) (noun), escalators (pl)
1. A set of moving steps attached to a continuously circulating belt, that carries people up or down between levels in a building: Edda and her two children went by escalator, instead of taking the elevator, to get from the first floor to the third one in the department store.
2. A stipulation in a contract that allows for a decrease or increase in salary, benefits, or prices, which is determined by specific conditions: Because the cost of living had gone up, James was very happy that the written settlement with his firm included an escalator to give him a pay raise!
3. Etymology: from 1900, American English, a trade name of an Otis Elevator Co. "moving staircase", coined from escalade, a borrowing from about 1600 from Middle French, where it meant "an assault with ladders on a fortification"; from Latin scala, "ladder" + -ator, "person or thing acting in a certain way"; as in elevator.
This entry is located in the following unit: scend-, scen-, scand-, scan-, scans- (page 2)