A charmingly old-fashioned British term for an escalator, popular in the early twentieth century before 'escalator' became the dominant word. The phrase captures the wonderment felt by people encountering this technology for the first time — it's just a staircase that moves, which is both accurate and somehow more magical than the technical term. Still occasionally used today with a deliberate nostalgic or whimsical tone, especially by older speakers or writers going for period flavor.
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UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
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Grandma still calls the escalator the moving staircase, and honestly it's a better name.
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(UK) An escalator.
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