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corbie-steps n. projections in the form of steps on the sloping sides of a gable; occurring in old houses in Scotland, the north of England, and on the Continent.This term appears in Jamieson's Etymol. Dict. Scottish Lang. (1808) as a modern Scottish vernacular name, with the synonym cat-steps (also German katzentreppe); another form, not given by Jamieson, is craw- or crow-steps, used in the south of Scotland. These names have apparently no literary history, and are evidently popular designations, meaning steps such as only a perching or climbing animal, like a crow or cat, could get at or use. Jamieson, however, offered the conjecture that corbie-steps might be a corruption of ‘corbel-steps’ (of the existence of which he had no evidence whatever), and this merely fictitious form has been adopted in some Dictionaries, etc.