staircase

noun

1. A flight of stairs; a stairway.

   “I was on the staircase by the bell / Blinded by the black magician's spell”

2. A connected set of flights of stairs; a stairwell.

   “Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.”

   “When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.”

   “Oliver immediately gets a 'guided tour, Felix wheeling through libraries and endless colour-coded rooms, up and down staircases and along echoing halls where various "dead relly[s]" stare down from the walls.”

3. A set of locks (enclosed sections of waterway) mounted one above the next.

verb

1. (transitive)To modify (a signal, a graph, etc.) to reduce a smooth curve to a series of discrete steps.

   “This leads to much smoother reconstructions in regions of moderate gradient and thus prevents staircasing.”

2. To increase one's share in a co-ownership.

   “It is a good idea to make plans for staircasing when you first buy your shared ownership home.”