ladder

Pluralladders

Formsladders, laddering, laddered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A portable frame of wood, metal, or rope with two side pieces joined by rungs, used for climbing up and down.

   The painter extended the ladder to reach the second-story windows.

   Firefighters carried a folding ladder up the narrow staircase.

   Similarstepladder

   Note

   The root image is leaning. Old English hlǣder goes back to an Indo-European root meaning "to lean", which fits the classic ladder: a frame propped against a wall rather than one that stands by itself. The self-supporting folding kind is a stepladder. Ladders also carry a handling rule and a superstition: carry one upright rather than slung across the shoulder, and avoid the bad luck of walking under one.

2. 2
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A path to a better position in life that consists of successive stages.

   Volunteering abroad became an important rung on her ladder to professional success.

   He saw the apprenticeship as the bottom of a long ladder he intended to climb.

   Similarpath, route, road

3. 3
   nounfigurativelycountable

   The ordered ranks or levels within an organization, pictured as rungs to be climbed, as in "the corporate ladder."

   After a decade of promotions, she reached the top of the corporate ladder.

   Office politics often decide who advances up the management ladder.

   Similarhierarchy, scale

4. 4
   nounBritishcountable

   A line in a knitted garment, especially a nylon stocking, where the stitches have come undone.

   A ladder had crept up her stocking before the interview even began.

   She kept clear nail polish in her bag to stop ladders from spreading.

   Similarrun

   Note

   British English calls a run in stockings a ladder, and the picture is exact. When one stitch gives way, the loops above it fail in a line of bare cross-threads, like rungs. The Report of the Committee of Council on Education for 1875 expected pupil-teachers to show "a ladder properly taken up" when darning. Run is the alternative word outside British usage.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   Of a knitted garment, to develop a line of unraveled stitches because a thread has broken.

   Fine stockings ladder easily if you catch them on rough surfaces.

   The sweater began to ladder where the moth had chewed through a strand.

   Similarrun, unravel

   Note

   The verb works both ways round. A garment can ladder by itself: Susan Sallis's The Pumpkin Coach (2004) has a cardigan laddering. A person can also ladder tights or stockings, as in Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong (1993), where he laddered her stocking. Either way it is the action behind the noun for a run, and its forms are regular: laddered, laddering.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To arrange or form something into the shape of a ladder.

   Gardeners often ladder the branches to train the plant upward.

   The editor laddered the headlines down the page in decreasing size.

   Similarstagger, tier, stack

   Note

   A writer's verb for things that settle into evenly spaced tiers: a brow furrowed in parallel lines, fingers interlaced under a chin, or Linnaeus ranking the plant kingdom down from classes to orders, genera, species and varieties. It takes a direct object and suits description more than instruction. Someone laddered his fingers. People do not usually ladder a list.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To climb a building, wall, or similar structure using a ladder.

   The crew moved quickly to ladder the warehouse from the rear.

   They laddered the apartment block within minutes of arriving.

   Similarscale, climb

   Note

   Firefighters use the verb with a direct object: a crew ladders a building, a wall or a roof, usually to reach upper floors. John Norman's Fire Officer's Handbook of Tactics (1998) warns that no one should be sent to ladder a building without knowing the ladder's parts and capacities. An older use stands on its own without an object: in 1896 Chambers's Journal describes a Rochdale climber who fell from a mill while laddering.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   In the game of Go, a sequence of moves following a zigzag pattern that ultimately leads to the capture of the attacked stones.

   He read the ladder all the way to the edge before deciding to play it out.

   A single stone in the upper corner turned the ladder in her favor.

   Note

   Go's ladder is a chase. The attacker keeps the fleeing stones in atari, one move from capture, and they stagger diagonally across the board in a zigzag until the edge traps them. Japanese players call it shichō. A friendly stone already sitting in the path breaks the ladder and saves the defender, so strong players read the whole diagonal before they start one.

9. 9
   verbslangUKtransitive or intransitive

   To close in on a target with successive salvos, raising or lowering the shot range as needed.

   The battery would ladder the range until shots fell on the bunker.

   The destroyer opened fire at long range, laddering for range until her third salvo straddled the cruiser.

   Similarbracket

   Note

   British naval gunners used this word for walking fire onto a target in steps. Each salvo falls a little nearer or farther than the last, like rungs, until the shells find the mark. It usually appears as laddering, often in the phrase laddering for range. It pairs with spreading for line, which corrects direction rather than distance. Norman Friedman's Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns & Gunnery (2014) credits it with hits on fast, maneuvering targets.

10. 10
    verbUKtransitive

    To corruptly pressure a convicted offender into admitting to offenses they do not believe they committed, in order to inflate the rate of solved crimes.

    Detectives would ladder suspects to pad their clear-up figures.

    The inquiry found that officers had laddered several inmates years earlier.

    Note

    British police corruption has its own verb. The subject is an officer, and the lever is the procedure by which a convicted offender asks for further offenses to be taken into consideration at sentencing. Laddered offenses are ones the offender does not believe they committed, added only to inflate the clear-up rate. It names misconduct, so it is an accusation, never a neutral description of procedure.

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