Skip to content
OneKitly

stairwell

nounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈstɛəwɛl//
  • United Kingdom//ˈstɛːwɛl//
  • Scotland//ˈsteɾwɛl//
  • //ˈstɜː(ɹ)wɛl//
  • //ˈstɛːwɛl//

A shaft in a multi-story building enclosing a stairway or staircase.

noun

  1. 1

    A shaft in a multi-story building enclosing a stairway or staircase.

    Math teacher David Kachadourian, 57, was shot first, out of view of the camera, while rushing his students to safety in a stairwell. Kachadourian, shot in the back, flees down one flight to the third floor, leaving a bloody trail.

    Photos accompanying the report included the rusty stairwell column that was replaced, the pool corbel’s “loose, cracked, spalled deteriorated concrete” and exposed rebar, water damage to balcony eaves, and other damage to eaves and stucco on the building.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *stéygʰeti Proto-Germanic *stīganą Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *staigijaną Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Germanic *-raz Proto-Germanic *staigraz Proto-Germanic *staigriz Proto-West Germanic *staigri Old English stǣġer Middle English steire English stair English well English stairwell From stair + well.

Forms

plural
stairwells
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).