ladder
/ˈladə
/noun
1A piece of equipment consisting of a series of bars or steps between two upright lengths of wood, metal, or rope, used for climbing up or down something.You run around climbing ladders, shimmying across ropes and running from one platform to another, collecting gems while avoiding the bad guys....
- Leaves in different parts of the canopy were accessed with ladders, climbing ropes, and a hydraulic lift, to facilitate photosynthetic measurements with hand-held instruments.
- Entrance for the others by means of climbing ropes or ladders over the wall would be possible, but they needed a quick exit route, and hoped to be carrying Grenwald, bound and gagged as they left.
1.1A series of ascending stages by which someone or something may progress: employees on their way up the career ladder...
- As she climbs the corporate ladder to the top, Kate also grows to love her gentleman caller.
- They needed to prove that women were just as determined as men to ascend the corporate ladder.
- Excluded from society, essentially cut out of her aunt's will, Lily descends the social ladder.
Synonyms
hierarchy, scale, set of stages, stratification, pecking order, grading, ranking, spectrum
2British A vertical strip of unravelled fabric in tights or stockings: one of Sally’s stockings developed a ladder...
- She's a social climber with ladders in her stockings but a good heart.
- In our house, a clear-out involves binning the odd pair of tights with more ladders than Bob The Builder, or removing a bunch of long-dead flowers from a vase.
- They had to be mended by hand or taken to one of shops in the city where a young woman repaired ladders in silk stockings using a special stand and hook.
verb British
(With reference to tights or stockings) develop or cause to develop a ladder: (as adjective laddered) her tights were always laddered [no object]: they laddered the minute I put them on
Origin
Old English hlǣd(d)er, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch leer and German Leiter.