step out

present singular third person steps out · participle present stepping out · participle past stepped out · past stepped out

1. transitiveTo exit a place on foot, often for a short time.

   She opened the car door and stepped out of the car.

2. idiomaticintransitiveTo date, to be in a romantic relationship.

   They've been stepping out since he told her he was interested in a family.

   Synonyms: go out

3. governmentTo increase the length, but not the rapidity, of the step.

   […] they had marched past Poincaré at Peterhof, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich stepping it out on the right flank with his perfect martial bearing and an air of desperate bravery about him, saluting and giving this honored guest eyes right.

   1989, H[arry] T[aylor], transl. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translation of original by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, →ISBN, page 225

4. colloquialimperativeHurry up; get a move on.

   "Look here, Bunter, step out," exclaimed Harry Wharton, impatiently. "Do you want lines from Quelch, you fat chump?" Billy Bunter did not step out. He remained where he was, and jerked a fat thumb up the woodland footpath.

   1952, Charles Hamilton, Billy Bunter and the Blue Mauritius

   Synonyms: step lively