Meanings
- pluralplural onlySynonym of Penrose stairs.
In a dream, you can cheat architecture into impossible shapes. That lets you create closed loops, like the Penrose Steps. The infinite staircase.
2010 July 8, Inception (Movie), spoken by Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)2 more examples
I'll have my heaven, / Where heaven is love and love is my heaven. / I just have to climb through those Penrose steps! / Till I find sky number seven.
2011 May 13, Amal A. Islim, Walking with the Vain Cattle: In the Womb of Life, the Plant of Miracle Is Ready to Blossom a White Flower, Bloomington: Balboa Press, →ISBN, →OLAt this book's inception, when we came to, we found ourselves already traipsing around Penrose steps, already reactively enclosed in an unceasing loop.
2012 April 16, Rob Coley with Dean Lockwood, Cloud Time, Alresford: Zero Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 100Synonyms: Penrose stairs
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSynonym of Penrose stairs.
Cite this entry
Penrose steps. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Penrose%20steps
“Penrose steps.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Penrose%20steps. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Penrose steps,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Penrose%20steps.
Source: Penrose steps on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.