English Reference

Word

stride

US/ˈstɹaɪd/

UK/stɹˈaɪd/

Definitions

01a long step

B2

n. a long step when you are walking or running.

n. a single long step in walking or running, or the distance covered by such a movement.

“He reached the door in just three long strides.”

“The athlete maintained a consistent stride throughout the race, ensuring he didn't exhaust his energy before the final lap.”

Synonyms

02progress

B2

n. an improvement or progress in the way something is developing.

n. significant progress or an advance in development, often used in the plural 'strides'.

“The company has made great strides in improving its technology this year.”

“Medical science has made enormous strides in the treatment of rare genetic disorders over the last decade.”

Antonyms

03jazz piano style

C2 · Music

n. a style of jazz piano where the left hand moves quickly between low notes and chords.

n. a style of jazz piano playing in which the left hand characteristically alternates a bass note on the first and third beats with a chord on the second and fourth.

“The pianist played a lively stride version of the classic song.”

“Mastering stride piano requires immense coordination, as the left hand must leap accurately across the keyboard while the right hand improvises.”

Technical

04memory spacing

C2 · Computing

n. the distance between pieces of data in a computer's memory.

n. the number of memory locations between successive elements in an array or pixels in a bitmap.

“The programmer adjusted the stride to make the image process faster.”

“If the stride is not correctly aligned with the cache line size, the software's performance may degrade significantly during large-scale data processing.”

Technical

Synonyms

incrementstep size

05to walk with long steps

B2

v. to walk with long, confident steps.

v. to walk with long steps, typically in a purposeful or confident manner.

“She strode across the room to shake his hand.”

“The CEO strode into the boardroom with an air of absolute authority, immediately silencing the gathered executives.”

Synonyms

Antonyms

Real-World Examples

“Taiwo Awoniyi and Jack Rudoni also missed big chances to give the visitors the lead before City began to find their stride.”
Al Jazeera · 5 Sept 2026

Etymology

From Middle English striden, from Old English strīdan (“stride”), from Proto-West Germanic strīdan, from Proto-Germanic strīdaną. Cognate with Low German striden (“to fight, to stride”), Dutch strijden (“to fight”), German streiten (“to fight, to quarrel”).

From Middle English stride, stryde, from Old English stride (“a stride, pace”), from the verb (see above). Doublet of strid.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Word family

strideNounstridesNoun

Idioms

get into one's stride — To become familiar with something

take something in one's stride — Not to allow oneself to be set back, daunted, upset or embarrassed by unpleasant or undesirable circumstances.

take something in stride — To cope with something unfortunate without much effort; to accept or manage difficulties well.

Domain

Computing

This entry

Level
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Frequent
Updated

Scan code

englishreference.com/q/stride

English Reference